The first voluntary carbon credits have been awarded to ship owners that have coated their hulls in a substance designed to reduce drag caused by the build up of slime, AkzoNobel, the inventors of the technology, announced on Wednesday.

Almost 127,000 VERs were issued by the voluntary carbon market certifier the Gold Standard, which along with the Fremco Group helped develop the emissions reduction methodology for the shipping industry.

The credits were issued to ship owners that have replaced the hull coating on their vessels with a substance such as AkzoNobel’s Intersleek coating which has been proven to reduce fuel consumption and cut CO2 emissions.

“On average, each of the 16 vessels included in the first issue achieved savings of just over 1,250 tonnes of fuel and 4,000 tonnes of CO2 per year, resulting in the award of 126,785 credits by the Gold Standard Foundation,” AkzoNobel said in a press release.

“That number is expected to increase as more vessels continue to enrol in the scheme.”

The company said that based on the average 10% CO2 reductions recorded in the first VER issuance, the full fleet of over 4,500 vessels currently using Intersleek have already achieved total annual cuts of around 17 million tonnes of CO2.

“That figure represents around 1.5 percent of the global emissions from shipping, as estimated by the 3rd IMO Greenhouse Gas Study.”

AkzoNobel added that it is currently in discussions with the enrolled ship owners regarding sale and offsetting options for their VERs.

By Mike Szabo – mike@carbon-pulse.com