Book and Claim Community launches to accelerate climate solutions for heavy transport decarbonization
Amsterdam, 2 June, 2023 - Smart Freight Centre (SFC) and clean energy nonprofit RMI are pleased to announce the launch of a Book and Claim Community, bringing together transport sector leaders and global organizations who wish to foster structured and effective book and claim chain of custody solutions to support heavy transport decarbonization.
Book and claim is a versatile ‘chain of custody’ system—the overall process by which materials, products, and their attributes are transferred, monitored, and controlled as they move through a supply chain. In this case, book and claim systems help track the environmental attributes of low emission transport solutions separately from the physical delivery, allowing ambitious buyers to, for example, purchase the greenhouse gas emissions reductions from clean fuels even if a plane, ship, or truck they use may not receive the physical fuel itself.
The market for low emission transportation solutions is nascent, and sourcing clean fuels can be cost prohibitive, unavailable for specific routes and entire geographies, or be incompatible with existing fleets. Allowing consumers to purchase environmental attributes separately from the fuel or service itself helps to ensure transport is powered by clean energy and logistically flexible while also helping bridge the current price difference between clean and conventional transportation solutions. Simply put, a robust book and claim approach can increase both supply and demand while also providing a balanced, auditable and credible trail of ownership and impact.
Enthusiasm is growing. In order to increase access to solutions, book and claim is in development in aviation, maritime and other emissions-intensive sectors of the global economy beyond transport. Formalizing and convening this Community is a key step to ensure book and claim gains necessary industry and civil society acceptance.
Book & claim is the key enabler to scale up the use of sustainable fuels and technologies in our industry. It enables a cost-efficient purchase of these fuels without unnecessary logistics cost and emissions, and it allows us to allocate emission reductions to frontrunner customers willing to jointly invest into decarbonization. We are thankful to SFC and RMI for launching this new secretariat, which will bring together existing efforts and initiatives across the industry.
Andreas Mündel
SVP Strategy & Operations Programs, Deutsche Post DHL Group
A universal, widely-accepted book and claim system is essential to ensuring cargo owners can support the zero-emission transition in shipping and reduce emissions from their own value chains while maintaining maximum logistical and transportation flexibility. Collaboration with partners across the maritime value chain through efforts like this Book and Claim Community is crucial.
- Ingrid Irigoyen
President and CEO, Zero Emission Maritime Buyers Alliance (ZEMBA)
Deloitte Global is proud to serve on the governing board of the newly launched Book and Claim Community. Innovative collaborations like this are critical to expanding the market for low emissions transportation solutions and capturing the emissions reduction value for corporate purchasers. Working as an ecosystem, we can accelerate our collective impact on global supply chain emissions.
Kathy Alsegaf
Chief Sustainability Officer, Deloitte Global
This Book and Claim Community was created to connect, support, and catalyze efforts across numerous stakeholders working to develop a coordinated book and claim approach for heavy transport decarbonization. It will serve as a central hub for existing and emerging efforts, reduce duplication, and communicate findings. SFC and RMI will co-chair the Community’s Secretariat, and its Board, which will help provide strategic guidance—Deloitte Global, Deutsche Post DHL Group, Shell, and World Energy.
Crucially, the Community will bring together existing book and claim efforts by pioneering corporate customers, suppliers, and other solution providers who have cooperated to develop certification systems, standards, accounting frameworks, registries, buyers’ alliances, and other critical enablers. This includes the foundational efforts of key collaborators, including the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB), the International Sustainability & Carbon Certification (ISCC), the Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance (SABA), the Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping (MMMCZCS) , the Zero Emission Maritime Buyers Alliance (ZEMBA, facilitated by the Aspen Institute), and many more key organizations.
Book and claim is the single most important method to scale carbon solutions for aviation. SFC, RMI and RSB give our customers confidence to buy certificates, and in turn, their demand unlocks new loans and investments to build SAF plants. World Energy is honored to participate in the Book and Claim Community with fellow climate leaders.
Adam Klauber
Vice President of Sustainability and ESG, World Energy
The potential for book and claim to drive decarbonization in heavy transportation is today unquestioned. Over the past years, we have traveled a steep learning curve together with other pioneering initiatives to understand how book and claim can be implemented in a way that is practical, robust and with verified sustainability impact. We are excited to participate in the Book and Claim Community and continue to co-create best practice in the sector, achieve consensus and drive awareness.
Arianna Baldo,
Programme Director, RSB
The power and potential of book and claim is clear – it is the key that can unlock the demand and supply challenges of SAF, which is critical to the decarbonization of aviation and other sectors. The challenges associated with deploying SAF at scale cannot be overcome by one party alone, and initiatives like this encourage the collaboration required to make a difference in increasing SAF use. As well as working to securing acceptance of book and claim through our own blockchain powered solution, Avelia, we now look forward to working closely with the members of this new community to help book and claim deliver on its potential.
Jan Toschka
President, Shell Aviation
Book and claim systems are already being developed and utilized in the aviation sector to spur the use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), including a SAFc registry and joint procurement tools developed by SABA, consistent with the RSB Book and Claim Manual, and blockchain-powered solution, Avelia.
To help catalyze green shipping services, similar efforts are underway involving fuel suppliers, ship owners and operators, cargo owners and freight forwarders, reflected in the recently-announced maritime book and claim project by the MMMCZCS, RMI, Danish Shipping, and Mærsk Oil Trading.
All sectors, including the maritime industry, must take immediate collective action to reduce emissions in line with the Paris Agreement and the International Panel on Climate Change 1.5°C trajectory. Therefore, we are thrilled to have developed the Maritime Book & Claim System, a tool that will help support the maritime industry in its green transition. This system will allow shipowners and operators to access a broader market of cargo owners willing to pay a green premium, monetize their green services, and recover investments in decarbonization technologies. As a result, it will trigger more investments in green shipping and accelerate decarbonization across the industry.
Pernille Dahlgaard
Chief Officer of Business, Regulatory and Analytics, Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping
As ambitious companies get serious about decarbonizing their supply chains, book and claim systems will be central to ensuring the credibility and transparency of the actions they take. SFC and RMI have driven much of the work to date in this space, so partnering on the Book and Claim Community is hugely beneficial for companies making significant green transport investments today and in the future.
Kim Carnahan
Head of Secretariat for, SABA and the AIM Platform
This Community will focus our efforts on four principal work areas over the next year:
- Reporting and Targets: Coordinate engagement with key reporting and target-setting organizations and support consistency across emissions accounting guidance
- Certification: Pursue alignment across approaches for certifying claims, standards for book and claim, and communication with assurance providers
- Registries and Related Applications: Facilitate coordination between registry and related software solution providers
- Capacity Building and Communication: Implement a cross-sector capacity-building and communication strategy, including summarizing and strategically communicating pilot approaches and outcome
Contact us
We welcome all book and claim stakeholders and encourage interested parties to connect with us. For more on the Community, we invite you to download the Community flier, sign up for the newsletter and join us on May 8 for a launch webinar. To reach the Secretariat, please connect with us at www.BookAndClaimCommunity.org or send us an Email: Secretariat@BookAndClaimCommunity.org
Secretariat
RMI is an independent nonprofit founded in 1982 that transforms global energy systems through market-driven solutions to align with a 1.5°C future and secure a clean, prosperous, zero-carbon future for all. We work in the world’s most critical geographies and engage businesses, policymakers, communities, and NGOs to identify and scale energy system interventions that will cut greenhouse gas emissions at least 50 percent by 2030. RMI has offices in Basalt and Boulder, Colorado; New York City; Oakland, California; Washington, DC; and Beijing.
Smart Freight Centre is an international non-profit organization focused on reducing greenhouse gas emission from freight transportation. Our goal is to guide the global logistics industry to track and reduce its GHG emissions by 1 billion tonnes by 2030 and reach zero emissions by 2050 or earlier. We collaborate with our global partners to quantify impacts, identify solutions, and advocate logistics decarbonization strategies. Together, we help solve the business challenges behind reducing freight emissions and impact the industry standards.
Governing Board
