Maritime Emissions Monitoring and MRV: How Naxxar Tech Is Building Carbon Intelligence for Shipping

Naxxar Tech attended Posidonia 2024 in Athens to explore one of the most important challenges facing global shipping: how maritime businesses can accurately monitor, report and understand the carbon emissions generated by moving cargo through increasingly complex global supply chains.

As the maritime industry accelerates its transition towards decarbonisation, maritime emissions monitoring and Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) are becoming increasingly important.

For shipowners, cargo owners, freight forwarders and logistics providers, the challenge is no longer simply calculating an annual carbon footprint. Businesses increasingly need reliable emissions data that can support regulatory reporting, customer requirements, sustainability strategies and operational decision-making.

At Naxxar Tech, we believe this requires a transition from traditional carbon reporting towards real-time carbon intelligence.

Why Maritime Emissions Monitoring Is Becoming More Important

International shipping plays a fundamental role in global trade, transporting goods between producers, manufacturers, retailers and consumers around the world.

However, moving cargo across global supply chains also generates greenhouse gas emissions.

As governments, regulators, investors and customers place greater emphasis on decarbonisation, businesses are increasingly expected to understand and demonstrate the environmental impact associated with their logistics operations.

This means organisations need better methods of measuring shipping CO₂ emissions and supply-chain carbon emissions.

The challenge is particularly significant because international cargo movements rarely involve a single transport mode.

A shipment may travel by:

• Vessel

• Truck

• Rail

• Air

• Inland waterways

It may also pass through ports, terminals, warehouses and distribution centres operated by different organisations.

This creates a fragmented digital environment in which the information required for accurate emissions calculations can be spread across multiple systems and stakeholders.

The Challenge of Maritime MRV and Carbon Reporting

Effective maritime MRV "Monitoring, Reporting and Verification" depends on access to reliable data.

Traditional emissions calculations can involve combining information such as cargo weight, transport mode, distance travelled, vessel or vehicle characteristics, fuel consumption and emissions factors.

Obtaining this information consistently across thousands of cargo movements can be difficult.

Many organisations have historically relied on spreadsheets, estimated values and manual calculations when preparing logistics emissions reports.

However, as reporting requirements and customer expectations increase, manual approaches become increasingly difficult to manage at scale.

They can also create another challenge: emissions reporting becomes disconnected from everyday logistics operations.

Naxxar Tech believes these two areas should increasingly be connected.

Connecting Real-Time Cargo Visibility with CO₂ Emissions Monitoring

Every shipment generates operational data throughout its journey.

IoT cargo tracking technology can provide businesses with greater visibility of where cargo is located and how it is moving through the supply chain.

Naxxar Tech combines real-time cargo and container visibility with AI-driven CO₂ emissions monitoring and reporting.

This creates an opportunity to connect two traditionally separate areas of logistics technology:

Cargo Intelligence + Carbon Intelligence

Instead of treating emissions reporting as an isolated sustainability exercise, logistics data can contribute towards understanding the environmental impact of individual cargo journeys.

The objective is to create a more integrated digital picture of both cargo movement and cargo emissions.

How IoT Can Support Supply-Chain Carbon Emissions Monitoring

IoT technology is increasingly transforming supply-chain visibility.

Connected tracking devices can provide information about the movement and status of cargo as it travels between origin and destination.

For emissions monitoring, this operational information can become particularly valuable.

Combining cargo movement information with relevant transport and environmental datasets can support more dynamic emissions calculations across multimodal supply chains.

For example, a cargo journey could include:

Factory → Truck → Port → Vessel → Destination Port → Truck → Warehouse

Rather than analysing each part of this journey independently, digital technology creates the opportunity to develop a more connected understanding of the shipment's environmental impact.

This could help cargo owners, freight forwarders and logistics providers develop more consistent door-to-door supply-chain emissions reporting.

Moving from Carbon Reporting to Carbon Intelligence

Calculating emissions is only the first step.

The greater opportunity lies in helping businesses understand what their emissions data actually means.

Organisations increasingly need to answer questions such as:

Where are the largest emissions generated within our supply chain?

Which routes generate the highest carbon emissions?

How would changing transport mode affect the carbon footprint of a shipment?

Are delays or inefficient routing increasing emissions?

Can alternative logistics strategies reduce both costs and CO₂?

Answering these questions transforms emissions information from a reporting obligation into a strategic business tool.

At Naxxar Tech, we describe this transition as moving from carbon reporting to carbon intelligence.

Carbon intelligence means using digital information, AI and analytics not simply to calculate emissions, but to help organisations understand patterns, compare alternatives and identify potential opportunities for improvement.

The Role of AI in Maritime Emissions Monitoring

Artificial intelligence can potentially play an important role in the next generation of maritime sustainability technology.

Global supply chains generate enormous quantities of information.

Cargo movements, transport modes, routes, vessel information, weather conditions, journey times and operational events can all contribute towards understanding logistics performance.

AI and advanced analytics can help organisations process these complex datasets and identify relationships that may be difficult to detect through traditional reporting methods.

This could enable businesses to move towards increasingly dynamic emissions monitoring rather than relying solely on retrospective calculations.

The result is potentially a more useful form of sustainability intelligence — one that supports both reporting and operational decision-making.

Maritime Decarbonisation Requires Better Digital Infrastructure

The maritime industry's transition towards lower-carbon shipping will depend on many different technologies.

Alternative fuels, vessel efficiency improvements, new propulsion systems and renewable energy will all contribute towards reducing shipping emissions.

However, physical decarbonisation technologies need to be supported by effective digital infrastructure.

Businesses need to understand their current environmental performance before they can reliably measure improvements.

Digital technology can help provide this foundation.

IoT, AI, automation and data analytics can complement physical decarbonisation technologies by providing the information required to monitor performance and evaluate whether sustainability strategies are producing measurable improvements.

The future of maritime digitalisation and maritime decarbonisation are therefore becoming increasingly connected.

Who Can Benefit from Better Maritime Emissions Data?

Improved logistics emissions monitoring can potentially benefit organisations throughout the maritime supply chain.

Cargo owners can gain greater visibility into the carbon footprint associated with transporting their goods.

Freight forwarders and logistics providers can provide customers with improved emissions information alongside traditional shipment visibility services.

Shipping and transport operators can use better operational data to understand the environmental performance of different routes and services.

Ports and terminals can contribute towards more connected digital logistics ecosystems.

And sustainability teams can gain access to more structured logistics data when preparing environmental and supply-chain emissions reports.

Connecting these stakeholders will become increasingly important as businesses seek more comprehensive visibility of their supply-chain emissions.

Collaboration Will Be Essential

Posidonia 2024 reinforced another important message: maritime decarbonisation cannot be achieved by one organisation or one technology.

Global shipping involves thousands of businesses operating across different jurisdictions, transport modes and technology platforms.

Improving maritime emissions monitoring will therefore require collaboration between shipowners, cargo owners, freight forwarders, ports, technology providers, policymakers and other maritime stakeholders.

Greater interoperability and data sharing could help reduce fragmentation while improving the quality of information available across international supply chains.

Events such as Posidonia provide an important opportunity for technology companies such as Naxxar Tech to engage directly with the maritime community and understand the operational challenges organisations are experiencing.

Increasingly, the conversation is moving from:

“Why should we measure emissions?”

towards:

“How can we measure emissions accurately, efficiently and at scale?”

Naxxar Tech: Connecting Cargo Intelligence with Carbon Intelligence

At Naxxar Tech, our ambition is to help build the digital infrastructure required for more visible, intelligent and sustainable global supply chains.

Our platform brings together IoT-powered cargo visibility, cargo monitoring and AI-driven CO₂ emissions monitoring and reporting within a connected digital environment.

By linking operational cargo information with environmental intelligence, we aim to help businesses better understand both how their cargo is moving and the environmental impact associated with moving it.

This creates the foundation for a broader transition from traditional logistics tracking towards intelligent supply-chain management.

It also supports our wider vision of connecting:

Cargo Visibility → Cargo Intelligence → Carbon Intelligence

Building Smarter and Lower-Carbon Global Supply Chains

The transition towards sustainable shipping will not happen overnight.

Alternative fuels and cleaner vessel technologies will be essential, but digitalisation also has an important role to play.

Better visibility can produce better data.

Better data can produce better intelligence.

And better intelligence can support better decisions.

For maritime businesses, the ability to connect cargo movements with emissions information could help transform sustainability reporting from a periodic administrative requirement into an increasingly valuable operational capability.

Posidonia 2024 was an excellent opportunity for Naxxar Tech to connect with the international maritime community and continue conversations around the future of shipping, technology and decarbonisation.