Eco-friendly vessels to receive financial compensation in London

 
The Port of London is set to introduce financial incentives for companies whose vessels comply with set environmental standards. This move is just a number of changes happening at the port of London in a bid to improve their environmental impact, which has shown little improvement in the wake of a global movement to improve the earth’s carbon footprint. 
The Port of London Authority (PLA) is to establish a plan that will give discounts on port charges for vessels with low emission levels that reach an Environmental Shipping Index (ESI) score of 30, or higher. 
The ESI, developed by the World Ports Climate Initiative (WPCI), ranks ships’ environmental performance based on factors including emissions of nitrogen oxide, sulphur oxide, and carbon dioxide.
The director of WPCI has expressed his delight at seeing the Port of London utilizing the standards put in place, in a bid to improve their own performance.  The Port of London is the second biggest within the UK, only behind Felixstowe, it contains 70 different terminals and more than 10’000 ships carrying in excess of 45 million tonnes of cargo pass through the Thames every year. 

 

 “Shipping is the most environmentally friendly method of moving large volumes of goods and materials. Nevertheless, more can be done to make shipping even cleaner. As ships represent a substantial capital investment, we want to encourage faster adoption of new green technologies by giving an added incentive to adopt cleaner technologies,” Christopher Rodrigues, PLA chairman, said.