Renewable Energy Directive III Report
Understanding how EU regulations shape maritime industry decarbonization
Leveling up the EU’s commitment to sustainable fuels
The European Union is strengthening renewable energy standards for fuel suppliers, accelerating the shift toward sustainable fuels and cleaner transportation.
The revised Renewable Energy Directive (RED), called RED III, now includes maritime targets for the first time. Under the directive, EU countries have defined their own fuel objectives, meaning that fuel suppliers will face different obligations from country to country. And EU countries with maritime ports have additional fuel targets that they must work to meet.
This has created a dynamic regulatory environment that fuel suppliers, shipowners, and operators in the EU are now well-positioned to navigate with the right guidance and support.
Key Figures
What is the Renewable Energy Directive?
The Renewable Energy Directive (RED) was first passed in 2009 and set targets for the EU’s use of renewable energy. It was overhauled in 2023 as part of the European Commission’s “Fit for 55.” This package of laws aims to set the EU on a course to cut its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 55% by 2030.
The revised directive, named RED III, provides a sustainability-oriented framework for energy, including fuels. It includes maritime in its transport sector targets for the first time and raises the ambition of its binding targets
Sustainability Project Manager
Future Shipping Team
The EU is at the forefront of global climate legislation. The obligations under the Renewable Energy Directive will likely increase the availability of sustainable fuels across the EU’s transport sector, spurring wider uptake in the maritime industry.
How does RED III impact the maritime industry?
Under RED III, each country in the EU is tasked with transposing the EU’s targets into national law. When drafting their national legislation, countries can choose between two targets for fuel suppliers:
- A 29% or greater share of renewable energy within the final consumption of energy in the transport sector by 2030.
- A 14.5% or greater reduction in GHG intensity in transport by 2030.
While these targets apply to each country’s entire transport sector, countries may choose to exclude the maritime sector from the transposition or set different targets for it. This creates a patchwork of rules across the EU and is already impacting the availability and cost of marine fuels in different EU countries.
Frequently Asked questions
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Under RED III, what counts as a sustainable fuel?
RED III lays out the categories that it defines as sustainable fuels. These include biofuels, advanced biofuels, biogas renewable fuels of non-biological origin (RFNBOs) and recycled carbon fuels (RCFs).
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What fuel targets does RED III set for EU countries?
The directive then sets out targets for the total make-up of the EU transport sector’s energy mix. Each EU country has the following obligations:
Of the total energy supplied to the transport sector, the combined share of advanced biofuels, biogas and RFNBOs:
I. must be at least 1% in 2025.
II. must be at least 5.5% in 2030.
- By 2030, RFNBOs alone must make up 1% of the total mix.
The impact on maritime depends on whether the EU country in question has included the maritime sector in its national transposition, and the targets it has set.
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What specific targets does RED III set for EU countries with maritime ports?
RED III fixes an additional obligation for EU countries with maritime ports, independent of how they carried out their national transpositions. These countries must work to ensure that the share of RFNBOs supplied to their national maritime transport sectors is at least 1.2% by 2030.
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What rules does RED III lay out for feedstocks?
The directive also sets limits on using some of the main feedstocks that marine biodiesels currently rely on, in particular used cooking oils (UCOs) and palm oil mill effluent (POME). Each EU country has set different rules on the allowable amounts of these feedstocks in the maritime sector.
Bureau Veritas helps clients navigate regulatory complexity
To achieve the targets set out by RED III, the maritime industry will need to build a resilient and sustainable fuel supply chain. This will require collaboration between banks, investment funds and financial and governmental institutions, producers, and maritime stakeholders.
Bureau Veritas is committed to supporting the work necessary to advance sustainable marine fuels across the sector. As a classification society, we help shape trust in these projects through technical due diligence and feasibility studies. Our holistic offer covers:
- Regulation analysis to enhance clients’ understanding of International Maritime Organization and EU regulations.
- Compliance checks to support compliance with RED requirements through regulatory checks.
- GHG calculations to calculate or review our clients’ carbon intensity calculations.
- Impact assessments to help shipowners assess the impact of regulations on a group of vessels or full fleet.
- Sustainable fuel outlooks to map and forecast fuel availability and costs to offer a comprehensive assessment of the benefits of different fuels under different shipping regulations.
- Fuel strategies to help shipowners forecast their needs, map fuel availability and costs and optimize their overall strategies to future-proof operations.
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