Container Ship Emissions & Retrofit Radar

Ships ranked by AER (Annual Efficiency Ratio) — grams of CO₂ emitted per tonne of deadweight carried one nautical mile (g CO₂/dwt·nm), the IMO carbon-intensity metric behind the CII rating — from official EU MRV emissions data for reporting year 2024. Lower is greener. Pick a segment and size class to see the greenest vessels first.

Segment rank (2024)

#2,099 of 2,098 container ships

CO₂ intensity

39.2 g CO₂/dwt·nm

vs segment average (10.39)

+277% higher

Bulk Carrier Container Ship Oil Tanker Chemical Tanker Gas Carrier LNG Carrier General Cargo Vehicle Carrier Refrigerated Cargo Ro-Ro Cargo

CII band distribution

1,081 at D/E

A 310B 415C 704D 602E 479

2,510 rated vessels · 461 of the D/E set dock within 12 months

Docking pipeline — D/E vessels per quarter

'27 Q1

'27 Q2

'27 Q3

'27 Q4

112

'28 Q1

'28 Q2

Windows estimated from the class-expiry docking model, not bookings.

Top eligible retrofit measures for this segment

Measure	Eligible	CO₂ reduction	Capex band	Payback	Confidence
Turbocharger cut-out	1,477	1–3%	€80k–250k	—	vendor claim
Propeller redesign / replacement	1,440	5–10%	€400k–1,200k	—	vendor claim
Bulbous bow reprofiling	1,344	2–6%	€300k–900k	—	vendor claim
Methanol dual-fuel conversion	965	5–15%	€8,000k–20,000k	—	vendor claim
LNG dual-fuel conversion	795	15–25%	€15,000k–35,000k	—	vendor claim
Shaft generator / PTO	360	3–6%	€500–1,500/kW	—	vendor claim

Capex bands are indicative vendor/literature priors. Payback appears once price parameters are configured.

Retrofit opportunity in this segment

624

D/E vessels with at least one eligible measure

€3,295–7,790M

capex range, top measure per vessel (624 of 624 with computable scaling)

1.48–2.63 Mt

annual CO₂ reduction available (vendor-claimed ranges × reported emissions)

Retrofit prospects — worst band first

Vessel	Band	Age	Drop year	Req. reduction 2030	Dock window
HANSA AFRICA · 25-60k	E	16y	2026	78%	Jan 2028
SEPELU · <25k	E	26y	2026	69%	Aug 2028
MSC SABRINA III · <25k	E	37y	2026	61%	Mar 2027
NILEDUTCH LION · 100-200k	E	18y	2026	59%	Mar 2028
HAMBURG TRADER · <25k	E	21y	2026	55%	Feb 2027

See all 2,510 rated container ships with exposure and dock windows. Sign in →

Note: Container/ro-ro cargo ship vessels are excluded from this ranking — their CII type is a per-vessel flag-state determination, so no valid comparison metric exists for them.

Sort 🌱 Greenest first 🔧 Least efficient first — retrofit candidates

Size (TEU)

All sizes < 3,000 TEU 3k – 8k TEU 8k – 14k TEU > 14,000 TEU

Year

2025 2024

2,076

vessels ranked

2.25

greenest (g CO₂/dwt·nm)

8.4

segment median

#	Vessel	Size (TEU)	Built	Length	Main Engine	Carbon intensity — AER (g CO₂/dwt·nm)	Grade
No vessels with reported carbon intensity for this segment / size in 2024.

Engine intelligence

Which engines power the greenest fleets?

The main engine is the single largest CO₂ source on board — typically well over 80% of a ship's emissions come from propulsion. We aggregated this ranking the other way around: every engine design is scored by the measured carbon intensity of the vessels carrying it, licensee-built units merged under their design brand. The verdict from the 2024 data — modern dual-fuel designs like MAN B&W's ME-GI and WinGD's X-DF families, together with EGR/SCR-abated and ultra-long-stroke G-type engines, consistently power the most emission-friendly ships in service.

Emission-friendly engine ranking

AER (Annual Efficiency Ratio) = annual CO₂ emissions ÷ (deadweight × distance sailed), the IMO carbon-intensity metric used for CII ratings. It is built only from measured CO₂, distance and deadweight — not the self-reported cargo transport-work figure, which is unreliable. Implausible outliers (top 2% per segment) are excluded. Grade A–E reflects each vessel's rank within its segment. Source: EMSA THETIS-MRV.