🌿 Charting a Greener Course

IMPA Save’s Maritime Environmental Footprint (IMEF) Initiative launched the new Scope 3 emissions standard to assist Maritime stakeholders to report product carbon footprints of their maritime products.

📌 IMPA SAVE’s IMEF Working Committee

On April 10th, 2025, the IMPA SAVE IMEF Working Committee gathered in Hamburg to confirm their pledge to collaborate on this standard. As a part of this working committee, Varuna Sentinels B.V. is committed to leveraging its maritime insights to ensure that the IMEF standard is future ready.

📋 What is the PCF guideline?

• Regulatory compliance mandates reporting on Scope 3 emissions in the maritime industry thereby creating a greater need for decarbonization. Investors, customers and supply chain partners demand greater transparency in the maritime industry.
• By measuring the Scope 3 emissions, shipping companies can identify areas for decarbonization and set reduction targets and ensure compliance.
• The Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) measures the total greenhouse gas emissions generated by a product from raw material extraction to final disposal.
• The draft edition of this standard focuses solely on calculating emissions during the production stage of a product i.e., Cradle to Gate. It does not account for emissions from logistics, usage, or end-of-life stages.
• The methodology focusses on measuring the carbon footprint through the production phase by using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Methodologies. When primary data is unavailable then data from Ecoinvent database can be used.

👥 Who Benefits from This Guideline?

The IMEF Product Carbon Footprint Guideline supports maritime stakeholders such as suppliers, ship owners, and managers by providing a clear framework to measure and report the PCF of their maritime components and equipment. This guideline applies to all products supplied to the maritime industry through IMPA members.

🚀 A Step Toward a Standardized Future

The existing guideline serves as a solid starting point, by calculating emissions only from Cradle-to-Gate. IMPA SAVE aims to broaden its framework in the future. Upcoming versions will include more comprehensive methodologies while aiming to align with growing regulatory compliance needs. This will, of course, reflect the inputs from various maritime industry stakeholders. This continuous refinement keeps the guideline effective and adaptable to the industry’s evolving landscape.

Therefore, this simplified approach is a win-win for suppliers, by not only ensuring an easy access point but also providing them a less complex way to measuring their emissions. This would be seen as a clear benefit to learn, grow and report while ensuring a sustainable future for the whole industry.