New report argues market-based accounting could unlock demand for low-emission fuels long before physical supply chains are fully established.
Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping and the Smart Freight Centre’s new report highlights how Book & Claim could become a mainstream tool for maritime decarbonisation.
The report, Leveraging Book and Claim to Decarbonize Hard-to-Abate Industry, examines how Book & Claim systems could accelerate the uptake of low- and zero-emission fuels across sectors where direct decarbonisation remains challenging. This includes maritime transport. Rather than focusing solely on shipping, the report places maritime within a wider industrial transition, arguing that credible market-based accounting can stimulate demand for green fuels before physical supply chains become sufficiently mature.
For shipping, the publication is significant because it comes as the industry continues to wrestle with one of the central challenges of decarbonisation; how to encourage investment in expensive alternative fuels before widespread bunkering infrastructure and dedicated vessel fleets are in place.
Book & Claim seeks to address that by separating the environmental attributes of a low-emission fuel from its physical delivery. A cargo owner, for example, can purchase the emissions reduction associated with a sustainable marine fuel even if its own cargo is carried on a conventionally fuelled vessel. The resulting revenue helps create demand for low-carbon fuels, supporting investment in production capacity while the physical supply chain continues to develop.
Although Book & Claim has been gaining increasing attention, the backing of the Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center and Smart Freight Centre is particularly noteworthy as both organisations have played influential roles in shaping thinking around maritime decarbonisation, emissions accounting and alternative fuel adoption.
While much of the industry’s attention has focused on fuel production, vessel technology and regulation attention has increasingly been turning to the commercial mechanisms needed to bridge the gap between today’s limited availability of green fuels and the scale required for widespread adoption.
Supporters argue that Book & Claim could provide that bridge by allowing early adopters, including cargo owners and freight buyers, to create demand for sustainable marine fuels. In doing so, they hope to improve the business case for fuel producers, shipowners and bunker suppliers investing in new fuel pathways.
Book & Claim relies on robust accounting, transparent governance and independent verification to ensure environmental claims remain credible. Confidence in those systems will ultimately determine whether voluntary markets achieve widespread acceptance.
Nevertheless, the report highlights an important evolution in the industry’s approach to decarbonisation. Rather than viewing Book & Claim as a temporary workaround, its authors argue that it should become a permanent market mechanism capable of accelerating investment in low-emission fuels across multiple hard-to-abate sectors.
For shipping, that may prove to be the report’s most important message. The transition to low-carbon fuels will depend not only on producing more green fuel, but also on creating commercial mechanisms that give investors the confidence to finance the infrastructure needed to bring them to market.
