Costamare Bulkers and ZeroNorth: improving data quality to drive shipping efficiency and compliance
The shipping industry's optimisation and decarbonisation efforts depend on reliable data. Traditionally, shipping companies have tracked vessel performance by manually entering data into noon reports, making them vulnerable to errors. As regulatory requirements grow more stringent, missing or inconsistent reports can be costly and hamper the effectiveness of digital platforms and optimisation efforts. While achieving high data quality is no small challenge - chartering company Costamare Bulkers has recently demonstrated significant progress. By collaborating with ZeroNorth and leveraging ZeroNorth’s advanced reporting system, the company has markedly improved reporting accuracy and eliminated missing reports.
For Costamare Bulkers, a charterer managing a fleet of about 65 vessels, high-quality data is crucial for tracking vessel performance against charter party terms and complying with increasingly stringent regulations. As Capt. Grzegorz Zbos, Vessel Efficiency and Sustainability Manager at Costamare Bulkers, explains, “There is a big misunderstanding in the industry that we can do proper analytics based on bad data. Fuel models cannot be built on missing or flawed data.”
New environmental regulations, like the EU Emissions Trading System and FuelEU Maritime, make accurate reporting more critical than ever. “For compliance, every report must be accurate. The quality of this data directly impacts costs,” says Capt. Zbos.
As a charterer, Costamare Bulkers faces the challenge of not having access to onboard technical equipment and measurement tools. Not being the party that employs the crew also limits its ability to cultivate a strong reporting culture.
Since 2023, Costamare Bulkers has used ZeroNorth's performance and reporting tools, leveraging the configurable system to tailor data fields to operational and technical needs to ensure many errors are caught already at the source. In 2024, ZeroNorth established a data quality team to validate customer data and drive improvements. Costamare Bulkers played a key role in setting up the processes for how the data quality team performs checks and carries out corrections for its vessels, ensuring ZeroNorth’s tools are utilised to their full potential. Together, they created a feedback loop that connects vessels with data analysts who validate the consumption data and help ensure reports meet the standards.
“The data validation team in Mumbai checks our data for inconsistencies and contacts vessels to correct errors, leading to significant improvements in reporting quality,” Capt. Zbos explains. “As a charterer, we pay EU allowances to shipowners, so it’s crucial to have a system that ensures these requests are accurate, which we can verify through our data.”
While more than half of Costamare Bulker’s fleet reports online, which allows for real-time validation, around 40% of vessels still use offline reporting methods, such as sending data through email - a process that can lead to errors. Capt. Zbos notes, “Most of our issues come from the offline reports. But with ZeroNorth’s support, we’re making steady improvements.”
Through this collaboration, Costamare Bulkers reduced reporting errors by over 90% and eliminated missing reports, dropping from more than 1,000 between February and May to none between June and September. The work has also made data management and validation more manageable for Costamare’s team and ensures the company’s fleet remains scalable. “ZeroNorth’s system also makes me feel confident about taking on more vessels,” says Capt. Zbos. “The improvements in data consistency and the reliable support have made a noticeable difference to our operations. It's a success story.”
Capt. Zbos concludes, “I can’t imagine shipping today without proper reporting and validated data. Owners or chartering companies without strong reporting risk significant financial losses. ZeroNorth has done an excellent job with its reporting system and validations, so we are very pleased.”