Ship emissions rankings

Who really is the most efficient at sea? These rankings are computed from the verified emissions every large ship calling European ports must report yearly under the EU MRV regulation.

Ranking ships by raw CO₂ would simply crown the smallest vessel. The fair metric — the one our efficiency leaderboard uses — is grams of CO₂ per tonne of cargo moved over one nautical mile, the same transport-work basis the EU MRV regulation itself reports. On that measure, three forces dominate: scale (a 24,000 TEU hull spreads its fuel over far more boxes than a feeder), design generation (post-EEDI hulls, delivered after 2013, are measurably cleaner), and operations (slow steaming and high utilisation flatter even older ships).

The biggest-emitters list answers a different question — where the most absolute CO₂ comes from — and its podium says as much about duty cycles as about technology: ferries and cruise ships top it not because they are inefficient machines, but because they sail nearly every day of the year with hotel services running. Both views together, efficiency and volume, are what a serious read of the data requires.

Verified data reported under the EU MRV regulation (source: EMSA / THETIS-MRV).

Most efficient container ships

Ranked by CO₂ emitted per tonne of cargo carried over one nautical mile — the metric that makes ships of different sizes comparable. Lower is better.

Biggest CO₂ emitters

The ships with the highest absolute CO₂ output of the latest reporting year, all ship types combined. Intensive schedules (ferries, cruise ships) dominate this list.

Top container fleets by operator →Shipping emissions report →