Energy LEAP Publishes Vessel Emissions Reporting Standard VERS 1.0
London, England,
Working together in close collaboration with ship owners, charterers, oil majors, association bodies and software vendors, Energy LEAP sees a broad opportunity for the digital exchange of information across several aspects of Shipping Operations, delivering a range of benefits beyond just administrative efficiency.
The current imperative in 2023 to track and report emissions data has galvanised these discussions, with the recognition that there is a need to have agreed data standards, as a foundation for any roadmap for improvement.
This publication brings together a first step on this roadmap, defining a standard which enables the full current range of emissions reporting requirements. Once adopted, this will bring a step-change in the capability of industry players to deliver on their emissions reporting obligations.
This revised version VERS 1.0 follows the publication of the draft VERS 0.9 in Jun’23 and includes minor modification obtained during the consultation period.
Next Steps: Validation for Adoption
As we develop our plans for early 2024, we will be progressing a couple of workstreams, both intended to further validate VERS 1.0 ready for adoption.
1) To confirm that the standard covers our intended scope for emissions reporting, we are pleased to continue our partnership with ZeroNorth to validate the standard against the needs of other vessel classes, including Dry-Bulk.
ZeroNorth’s mission to make global trade green places them perfectly alongside the strong support of Energy LEAP’s oil majors and existing service providers. We welcome the support of ZeroNorth and the Impact Today network to take this work forward, as well as input from other significant industry contributors including Smart Maritime Network.
Lora Jakobsen, Chief Purpose Activist at ZeroNorth and Director of Impact Today, will chair this working group on behalf of Energy LEAP.
2) In addition, to ensure this standard is truly fit for the purpose of adoption, the VERS 1.0 standard will be “road tested” in a technical proof of concept involving a sand-box environment working with technical representatives across the industry. This work is intended to give confidence to those involved, so that they appreciate what will be involved to adopt the standard into their working systems.
Dominic McKnight Hardy will be providing the technical facilitation for this workstream on behalf of Energy LEAP.