Preliminary approach to the application of the environmental ship index

The rising global concern for environmental pollution boosts initiatives to reduce anthropogenic emissions. Shipping, like the whole transport sector, is endeavoring, in the last years, to reduce its share of emissions. A cooperation between ship-owners and port authorities has been and will be fundamental in this context. In 2010, the World Port Climate Initiative (WPCI) launched the Environmental Ship Index (ESI) project to encourage the adoption of policies to reduce the ship’s emissions into the atmosphere. The index is a representative number of the environmental performance of a ship that evaluate the amount of nitrogen and sulphur oxides emitted by any type of ship, compared to the regulatory limits. In this work, an estimate of the ESI index will be made for several cruise ships for which a suitable database was available. The results obtained will be suitable for future application of this index from ports and suppliers and other operators in the field.