IMO Workshop Advances Life Cycle Intensity of Fuels

An Expert Workshop on the life cycle GHG intensity of marine fuels (GHG-EW 4) was organized by IMO December 14-15, 2023, to support the further development of the IMO life cycle GHG intensity assessment (LCA) framework.

The workshop focused on the sustainability, certification and third-party verification of marine fuels.

In adopting the IMO LCA Guidelines, MEPC 80 in July 2023 requested the Secretariat to undertake a review of existing practices on sustainability aspects/certification and third-party verification issues and to organize an expert workshop on the life cycle GHG intensity of marine fuels, using the output of the review as a basis for discussion.

Experts’ presentations and discussions were structured in three blocks:

• existing practices on sustainability aspects, certification and third-party verification;

• sustainability aspects in the IMO LCA framework, including possible approaches to operationalize a risk-based approach for Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC); and

• possible approaches to the certification and third-party verification of marine fuels in the IMO LCA framework.

The 2023 IMO GHG Strategy states that “the development of the basket of candidate mid-term GHG reduction measures should take into account the well-to-wake GHG emissions of marine fuels as addressed in the LCA guidelines developed by the Organization with the overall objective of reducing GHG emissions within the boundaries of the energy system of international shipping and preventing a shift of emissions to other sectors.”

The information gathered will help delegations in preparing for the consideration on the further development of the IMO LCA framework during ISWG-GHG 16 (March 11-15, 2024) and MEPC 81 (March 18-22, 2024).

The workshop drew over 350 registered participants and was moderated by the Chair of the Working Group on Air Pollution and Energy Efficiency of the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC), Kohei Iwaki (Japan).