The Environmental Protection Alliance (EPA) has written an open letter to the CEO of RightShip, the world’s leading third party ship vetting organisation, demanding that the company amends its environmental rating system to take into account the pollution from scrubbers.
The EPA’s forthright letter suggested that RightShip had not properly changed its greenhouse gas (GHG) ratings system to reflect the environmental effect of exhaust gas cleaning systems because one of its primary owners is a vocal supporter of scrubbers.
RightShip’s main backers are some of the world’s largest bulk shippers, including Cargill, Rio Tinto and BHP.
EPA is a US-headquartered coalition of financial institutions, pension funds, individuals and organisations.
“Pollution in any manner is still pollution! Ignoring it does not make it go away!,” the letter stated, adding: “Failure to include the additional pollution would make it clear that RightShip cares less about documenting the sustainability of ships than it does about providing cover for the shipping industry’s worst polluters.”
The EPA has been upping its campaign against scrubbers and specifically the wastewater from this technology for the past couple of months.
In response to the open letter RightShip CEO Martin Crawford-Brunt told Splash: “We have been researching and reviewing scrubber systems for several years. RightShip’s GHG Rating uses the Energy Efficiency Design Index supplied by the International Maritime Organization and will take the full effects of scrubber systems into account when calculating the efficiency and subsequent output of greenhouse gases for each vessel when enough real time data is present.”
