The European Community Shipowners' Associations (ECSA) supports a European Union initiative to monitor emissions.
ECSA considers that the best way to collect the required data for monitoring compliance with exhaust gas emission regulations is by means of Bunker Delivery Notes (BDN).
The EU said last year that it will pursue a system for monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) of greenhouse gas emissions starting early 2013, and ECSA said any system must be accurate, simple, cost-effective and exclusively based on the vessels fuel consumption.
ECSA believes that the Bunker Delivery Notes (BDN), already available onboard all ships and the entries in the oil record book, constitutes the appropriate legal, certified and verifiable input to a MRV system. BDN and oil record book are mandatory according to the MARPOL convention and subject to verification during Flag State and Port State inspections.
Furthermore, ECSA said it is of the opinion that the relevant authority for CO2 data collection should be the Flag State.