MERC Guide for Passenger Vessels
Recommendation Finder
We want to… / Decarbonise our business
Decarbonisation involves minimising your greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
The first step is usually to set a baseline for your emissions profile so you know where your biggest problems are and can measure how much improvement your changes create.
Emissions might come from many different parts of your organisation’s operations, so often the best place to start in decarbonising is to establish what your current emissions are.
Some actions you can take to address decarbonisation will relate to becoming more efficient, and requiring less energy.
In general, electrification is usually a good idea to consider as it can be more energy efficient, and can also source energy from lower emission sources.
You can also explore sourcing more sustainable fuels.
When discussing greenhouse gas emissions a useful concept that is used is the scope of the emissions (see figure).
Scope 1 - Direct emissions from burning fossil fuels to power equipment or vehicles.
Scope 2 - Direct emissions created by suppliers that provide us the energy, water and heating/cooling we purchase.
Scope 3 - Indirect emissions, some from upstream (suppliers), others from downstream (customers). These are emissions that are created in order to supply us or use the things we give them.
Most organisations focus their short-term decarbonisation efforts on Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions initially, as they are in your direct control.
What actions do you want to explore?
Things to consider if you mainly do…
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Ferry businesses usually have fuel consumption as one of their largest expenses, and it is almost always also their largest source of GHG emissions.
This makes measures that directly address fuel use, such as efficiency, well worth prioritising.
If tackling efficiency, then getting an emissions baseline is also worth doing, and having it not just be for a time period but understand what the numbers typically are per passenger per nautical mile, and per route.
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Marine Tourism businesses come in many different flavours. Emissions savings might come from your vessels, or from shoreside assets like buses and buildings. Efficiency is worth considering, but so is electrifying whatever you can as that usually allows you to source cleaner, less emissions intensive energy.
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Before your customers start to ask how they can decarbonise their vessels, you need to know who are the suppliers you can talk to and learn from.
The main actions you can help them with are focusing on energy efficient designs, and electrification - whether that is replacing gensets, or propulsion systems or even adding solar.