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The Global Maritime Decarbonisation Summit closes today in Amsterdam, after three days bringing together shipowners, fuel suppliers, ports, investors, and regulators to confront a question that has moved well beyond the theoretical: how does the maritime sector reduce its emissions footprint when sustainable marine fuels remain constrained by complex fuel logistics, uneven availability across routes and ports, and the price points the industry needs, while corporate freight customers are simultaneously seeking credible ways to address their Scope 3 transport emissions.
This is a structural problem, not only a compliance problem, or a regulatory one. The pressure is there, real and tightening. FuelEU Maritime and the EU Emissions Trading System are applying compliance obligations to vessel operators now, while corporate buyers and freight customers are also under pressure to reduce and report Scope 3 transport emissions, sustainable marine fuel logistics are simpler, more uniform, and more cost competitive. But regulatory compliance, physical fuel use and customer Scope 3 decarbonisation claims are not the same thing. Operators may meet their regulatory obligations and still fall short of the emissions reductions their corporate buyers, investors, and supply chain partners are increasingly demanding. That gap, between what regulation requires and what credible customer Scope 3 decarbonisation action looks like, is where the real strategic pressure sits.
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Why Fuel Logistics Cannot Be the Gating Factor for Scope 3 ActionÂ
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Freight transported by ocean-going ships accounts for a substantial share of global greenhouse gas emissions. While ships are the most efficient way to move cargo, carrying most of the world’s freight by volume, this sector’s emissions remain heavily fossil fuel dependent. Growing trade volumes, particularly from Asia, Africa and Latin America, are projected to increase freight demand substantially by 2050. Without structural intervention, maritime will become one of the highest-emitting sectors precisely as other parts of the economy are decarbonising.
The challenge is that low-emission marine fuels, whether biofuels, synthetic fuels, or other alternatives, are not yet available uniformly across bunkering ports, routes, or price points. Some options, including renewable diesel and other drop-in biofuels, can already use existing infrastructure in many cases. A shipowner operating a global fleet cannot guarantee that the vessel calling at Rotterdam this week and Singapore next month will have access to the same verified low-carbon fuel at the same cost, quality and volume. The supply chain is fragmented by geography, infrastructure investment timelines, and policy variation across jurisdictions, and is constrained less by a total absence of infrastructure than by fuel logistics, certification, availability and cost.
And although the regulatory frameworks appear to anticipate the projections on emission increase for the maritime sector, they do not, however, wait for sustainable marine fuel logistics to become simple, uniform or cost competitive. FuelEU Maritime sets greenhouse gas intensity reduction targets for energy used on board EU-connected vessels. The EU ETS now applies to maritime emissions on routes to, from, and between EU ports. Operators are obliged to report and pay for emissions that they may not yet be able to physically avoid through direct fuel substitution alone on every route. The gap between regulatory obligation and physical fuelavailability is therefore not a niche concern, but rather the operating reality for most vessel operators engaged in international trade today. For corporate freight customers, the related challenge is different: how to credibly report Scope 3 transport emissions reductions when sustainable fuel use is managed through the supply chain and cannot always be physically linked to a specific shipment.
This is the context in which book and claim, as a mechanism, becomes strategically significant: not as a compliance instrument under FuelEU Maritime or the EU ETS, but as a way for freight customers and shippers to support and claim Scope 3 in-sector decarbonisation now, ahead of direct physical allocation to specific shipments, and to back that action with independently verified claims that hold up under corporate, investor, and procurement scrutiny. Â
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What Book and Claim Actually Does   Â
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Book and claim, as a mechanism, addresses this gap by decoupling the environmental attributes of a low-emission fuel from its physical delivery to a specific customer shipment. A fuel producer certifies that a quantity of sustainably produced marine fuel has been introduced into the supply chain and registered against a verified standard. A buyer, operating elsewhere in the supply chain, purchases the corresponding sustainability attribute in the form of a book and claim unit (BCU). That buyer can then make a verified, independently assured claim about its Scope 3 contribution to in-sector decarbonisation, without requiring the physical fuel to have been bunkered at their specific port on their specific voyage.
This is not a workaround. It is a structurally sound mechanism that allows the demand signal to reach producers before the physical supply chain has consolidated. It funds and incentivises the development of low-carbon fuel production by creating a market for verified attributes. It also enables corporate freight customers and shippers to demonstrate decarbonisation action with claims that are traceable, third-party assured and not susceptible to the credibility challenges that self-declared claims attract under investor and procurement scrutiny. Under the RSB Book & Claim System, every claim is tracked through a single registry, and retirement statements are fully public.
The critical word is verified. A book and claim system is only as credible as the standard governing it. Double counting, unclear chain of custody, and unaudited supplier claims are the failure modes that undermine the mechanism. This is precisely why the governance structure behind the system matters as much as the mechanism itself.
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The RSB Maritime Book & Claim Pilot   Â
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RSB’s Book & Claim System is piloting maritime now. RSB is extending its Book & Claim framework toward maritime through B&C Manual Version 5, building on a system that is already operational in aviation at scale, with the maritime work focused on customer-related Scope 3 freight claims rather than vessel operators’ Scope 1 compliance claims, with 85 active registry users and almost 60,000 Book & Claim Units, , equal to tonnes of certified product, issued in 2025.
RSB and DHL Global Forwarding launched a strategic pilot project to test, evolve, and scale the RSB Book & Claim System for freight transport, spanning both maritime and aviation sectors. A defining feature of the pilot is that both sectors operate through the same RSB Book & Claim Registry, meaning that a logistics operator managing emissions across ocean and air freight does not need separate systems, separate verification processes, or separate governance frameworks. The initiative enables DHL Global Forwarding’s customers to make traceable and verifiable Scope 3 claims regarding the use of low-emission fuels across modes, backed by the automated functionality of a single registry and a system being developed through a multi-stakeholder governance process.
The maritime focus of the pilot is directly relevant to the decarbonisation pressures described above. The pilot is designed to adapt and refine the RSB Book & Claim System for freight logistics, with work focusing on three areas: demonstrating how book and claim can be applied consistently to customer-related Scope 3 emissions reductions across maritime freight; developing approaches to make emissions reduction reporting clear, reliable, and customer-ready; and testing how the RSB Book & Claim Registry can support multi-customer allocation.
Max Eichelbaum, RSB’s Associate Director of Digital Solutions and Book & Claim, described the pilot as a key step toward enabling credible climate action for freight customers, combining logistics expertise with RSB’s verified framework to develop a transparent and auditable solution built on consensus-driven standards from RSB’s global community.
The DHL Global Forwarding partnership is significant not only as a proof of concept but as a signal of where corporate demand is moving. DHL Global Forwarding is operating under Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi) commitments that cover Scope 3 emissions from logistics operations. Limited access, uneven distribution, complex logistics and price premiums for low-emission fuels pose a direct challenge to logistics providers, freight customers, and shippers seeking to demonstrate credible decarbonisation action at this scale. RSB’s approach ensures claims are supported by robust standards, third-party assurance, and multi-stakeholder oversight, avoiding double counting and enabling claims that are both transparent and traceable.
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Why Independent Governance Is Not OptionalÂ
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The maritime sector is entering a period in which the scrutiny applied to emissions claims will intensify significantly. Corporate procurement teams at cargo owners and freight forwarders are increasingly required todemonstrate that their Scope 3 emissions figures are defensible under external challenge. Investors are applying more forensic due diligence to the emissions data companies report. And as FuelEU Maritime and EU ETS reporting frameworks bed in, the bar for what constitutes a credible, auditable emissions claim is rising across the board.
A book and claim system built on self-declared standards or opaque registries does not meet this bar. The credibility of the claim depends entirely on the credibility of the standard and the independence of the verification. A corporate freight customer or shipper making a Scope 3 emissions reduction claim needs that claim to be independently assured, not merely stated.
RSB’s multi-stakeholder governance is its structural differentiator in this context. RSB is an independent, not-for-profit organisation. Its standards are developed through a global community of producers, buyers, civil society, and technical experts. Its Book & Claim Registry is designed specifically to prevent double counting across a multi-participant system. Critically, every claim tracked through the RSB Book & Claim Registry, and retirement statements are fully public, helping buyers, investors and auditors verify the integrity of emissions reduction claims independently. For an operator whose decarbonisation claims will face investor, procurement, or NGO scrutiny, this combination of independent governance and full public traceability is what makes those claims defensible rather than merely stated.
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From Pilot to Practice: What the Trajectory Looks Like   Â
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RSB’s maritime piloting work is part of a deliberate, phased expansion of its Book & Claim framework. The aviation sector demonstrates what the mature end of this trajectory looks like: a system that is operational at scale, with active registry users, verified RSB Book & Claim Units in circulation, and a community of producers and buyers engaging through a structured governance platform.
Maritime is at an earlier stage. The pilot is designed to validate the mechanism in a freight logistics context, resolve the operational questions around multi-modal application, and build the technical and governance infrastructure for a system that can scale. The DHL Global Forwarding collaboration is testing specifically how a leading logistics operator with a large and diverse customer base can integrate book and claim into its emissions reporting and customer proposition.
The B&C Manual Version 5 development is extending the system’s technical scope to cover maritime use cases with the same rigour applied in aviation. This is not a parallel system. It is the same RSB Book & Claimframework, adapted for a sector with different fuel logistics, different bunkering infrastructure, and different regulatory conditions, and focused on enabling credible customer-related Scope 3 claims rather than replacing physical fuel accounting or regulatory compliance pathways.
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What This Means for Operators at the Summit
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Over the past two days, the Global Maritime Decarbonisation Summit has centred its conversations on exactly the operating environment described above: how to evaluate fuel strategies that minimise commercial risk under uncertain policy conditions, how to prepare for FuelEU Maritime and EU ETS compliance, while also responding to corporate demand for credible Scope 3 transport emissions reductions, and how to ensure that current investments in decarbonisation are not stranded as the regulatory landscape continues to evolve.
The question for operators leaving Amsterdam this week is not whether decarbonisation action is needed. That is settled. The question is whether Scope 3 decarbonisation claims made by freight customers and shipperswill be credible, traceable, and recognised by the buyers, investors, and partners demanding them. That is precisely the bar that an independently governed book and claim system is built to meet.
RSB’s maritime Book & Claim pilot is building the system that makes this possible at the scale and with the governance integrity the sector will require. For operators who are preparing rather than waiting, the infrastructure to act is already in development. The pilot is ongoing now. The registry infrastructure exists. The governance framework is in place.
Learn more about the RSB Book & Claim System and explore how it can support your emissions strategy. Visit rsb.org/programmes/book-and-claim
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