Reduction of Emissions of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) from Ships - Prevention of Pollution of the Marine Environment from Vessels - page 105

6.2.1 SEMP

SEMP introduces a mechanism for improving the operational energy efficiency of
ships. It encourages not only a ship-specific SEEMP, but also a border corporate
energy management policy for shipping companies. Each ship shall keep on board a
ship SEEMP that may be part of the ship

s Safety Management System (SMS).
The SEEMP shall be developed taking into account guidelines adopted by IMO.
Accordingly, the MEPC has adopted guidelines, which are now required by the
amended MARPOL Convention, for ships to assist with the preparation of
SEEMP. 12 According to these guidelines, “[a] SEEMP provides a possible
approach for monitoring ship and fleet efficiency performance over time and
some options to be considered when seeking to optimize the performance of the
ship”. 13 The 2012 Guidelines stipulate that the “SEEMP seeks to improve a ship

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s
energy efficiency through four steps: planning, implementation, monitoring, and
self-evaluation and improvement”. 14 The planning stage will determine the current
status of ship energy usage as well as the mechanism for improvement of ship
energy efficiency. 15 This stage involves ship-specific measures, company-specific
measures, human resource development and goal-setting. 16 However, “

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the goal-
setting is voluntary, that there is no need to announce the goal or the result to the
public, and that neither a company nor a ship are subject to external inspection”. 17
After the planning and identifying operational measures, the ships must establish a
proper implementing mechanism for “selected measures by developing the pro-
cedures for energy management, by defining tasks and by assigning them to
qualified personnel.” According to the 2012 Guidelines, “the SEEMP should
describe how each measure should be implemented and who the responsible
person(s) is. The implementation period (start and end dates) of each selected
measure should be indicated. The development of such a system can be considered
as a part of planning, and therefore may be completed at the planning stage”. 18 The
guidelines also encourage record-keeping of the implementation of each measure
and of identified measures that cannot be implemented for any reason(s). 19 They
also suggest the quantitative monitoring of the energy-efficiency of a ship through

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12

2012 Guidelines for the Development of a Ship Energy Efficiency Management Plan (SEEMP) ,
MEPC Res 213(63), Annex 9, IMO Doc MEPC 63/23 (2 March 2012) (hereinafter 2012
Guidelines).
13

Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid.