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Companies rarely share their emission data beyond the minimum required by regulation, which varies all over the world. This makes it challenging to calculate the emissions of the world fleet. Mercuria takes a step forward as a progressive industry player by increasing transparency of its shipping data and sharing it with the C4IR Oceans flagship project Ocean Data Platform

"Mercuria is proud to participate in such an important project and is working both actively and consistently with our responsibility to contribute to the improvement of the environment, particularly relating to our global oceans.  As part of our common commitment to improving ocean productivity and health, we are pleased to be working in collaboration to further the Ocean Data Platform initiative as part of the World Economic Forum (WEF) network of centres for the Fourth Industrial Revolution” — said Marco Dunand, CEO Mercuria.

C4IR Ocean (Centre for Fourth Industrial Revolution Ocean) aims to connect people, data, and technology by establishing the world's largest, most inclusive hub for data-driven solutions so that the ocean can become more resilient and economically productive. Established in 2019 by the Aker Group and the World Economic Forum network of Fourth Industrial Revolution Centres worldwide, C4IR Ocean is the first thematic Centre dedicated to the ocean.

"Today, we take a significant step forward through the partnership between the global integrated energy and commodity trading company Mercuria and our Ocean Data Platform. We are very excited and look forward to working together bringing more data into the light so that better and sustainable decisions about the ocean can be made" —said Bjørn Tore Markussen, CEO, C4IR Ocean.

Transparency is key

The Ocean Data Platform has just finished the initial building of the application "Next Generation Shipping Emissions Tracking" based on open data from the Automatic Identification System (AIS) and recently showcased at Microsoft's biggest developers conference MSBuild. The application shows real-time greenhouse emission from the global merchant shipping fleet.

Mercuria will be contributing to the Ocean Data Platform by using its expertise as suppliers to the global shipping market and as owners of a vessel fleet. A concrete example of its contribution is sharing fuel data from the fleet of the tankers they operate.

"The partnership with Mercuria and their sharing of data enables the Ocean Data Platform to compare our results in the application "Next Generation Shipping Emissions Tracking” with the real world and tune our models using machine learning techniques. This enables an unprecedented view into how the global shipping fleet is operating and thereby highlighting areas for improvement, the old saying “what gets measured gets managed” still rings true. We hope others will follow in the footsteps of Mercuria and share their data as well” said Mogens L. Mathiesen, Head of Industry at C4IR Ocean.

In recent years, Mercuria has built upon a series of strategic acquisitions, including the physical commodities trading unit of JPMorgan Chase & Company; Noble Group's U.S. gas and power business; and the Aegean Marine Petroleum Network, reorganised as Minerva Bunkering. The Group continues its journey by forging a pathway toward the energy transition by bringing added value, transparency, and efficiency to the commodities trading world.  

"We are very excited to contribute to this Ocean Data Platform initiative. In order to really make substantial changes to protect our oceans, we need to fully understand the impact that different factors have on them. This important work will help to ensure that there is transparency and visibility into causes and effects of what is happening to our oceans." said Marco Dunand, CEO Mercuria.

In addition to sharing data, the partners are also looking into other valuable areas where increased transparency is needed.

About C4IR Ocean 

The World Economic Forum has set up 13 centres for the Fourth Industrial Revolution across the globe. The centres work with governments, leading companies, civil society, innovators and science experts from different sectors to explore how to maximise the benefits of modern technology to solve critical societal tasks. Located in Oslo, Norway, the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Ocean is the only Centre solely focusing on oceanic challenges. C4IR Ocean was initially founded by the Aker Group and the World Economic Forum in 2019 and now has a growing network of 16 partners.