A solution approach for decision-making on vessel fleet sustainability focusing on alternative fuels in a life-cycle basis

Abstract

International Maritime Organization has launched a set of different regulatory frameworks focusing on maritime pollution prevention mechanisms and practicing different solution approaches. A multi-dimensional life-cycle analysis on vessels and maritime fuels (fossil & alternative low carbon fuels) can make an important contribution to the IMO's long-term carbon neutrality target for 2050. A typical vessel's operational profile contributes on approx. 80% of greenhouse gas emissions and 50% of total costs respectively during its lifetime. Therefore, the investigation of ships operational benchmarks following a lifecycle analysis approach could create suitable decision-making support tools for different optimization problems regarding alternative green fuels. This paper proposes a solution approach to evaluate current vessel fleet operational benchmarks for different ship categories and provide a decision-making support mechanism to tackle important operational problems during ship's lifetime. The proposed approach contains an evaluation mechanism to determine the suitable economic and environmental key performance indicators necessary to properly evaluate the multi-dimensional sustainability of the examined case studies with respect to the IMO (MARPOL) environmental regulations.