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The Baltic and International Maritime Council (BIMCO), has announced that it has thrown its weight behind the proposals for an Energy Efficiency Design Index for new ships as a mechanism for emission reduction and said that an International Compensation Fund is the best market-based instrument.

The world's largest private shipping organization said in a statement "BIMCO, having considered environmental strategies at our recent Athens General Meeting, supports, in principle, an Energy Efficiency Design Index, as a broad measure of energy efficiency, although we recognise that there may be issues with ship types designed specifically to cater for particular transport needs."

BIMCO added that such a scheme provides a direct incentive for technical advances in fuel and ship efficiency. It also referred to the comments of DNV's CEO Henrik Madsen, who emphasized at the Athens General Meeting that there were “low hanging fruits” from existing technology and that there remains considerable scope for improvement in hydrodynamics, propeller and afterbody design, main machinery and auxiliary equipment, along with fuels, all of which will produce advances in technical efficiency for future ships.

Operational improvements are similarly possible, with better scheduling, adjustments in speed and infrastructural advances, BIMCO added.

However, the organisation said that it could not support any form of mandatory application of the IMO Energy Efficiency operational indicator, but strongly endorsed the Ship Efficiency Management Plan as a vehicle to gauge performance.

Like other shipping bodies, BIMCO said it believes that measures to manage the emission of greenhouse gases from shipping should be regulated through the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).

Furthermore, BIMCO said it believes that any Market Based Instruments (MBI) should be based upon IMO’s nine fundamental principles, and have broad support from the industry.

Of the proposals for MBIs submitted to the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC 59) meeting, BIMCO said the Danish proposal for an IMO International Compensation Fund - which would be financed by a levy on bunker fuel - is the instrument that best meets the nine IMO principles.