Building data visualisations for global shipping

Project background

TBL Group Ltd is a leading company that provides climate change and carbon market advisory services. They are dedicated to helping your organisation reduce costs, understand how regulations will impact you, and drive business value with their leading carbon optimisation service. By taking a holistic view of climate change and sustainability, they aim to balance the 3 principles: Planet, People & Profit in a way that creates value for all parties involved.

Since 2023, EU regulations (2023/857) aimed at reducing emissions through the introduction of fees and penalties. These regulations are part of a broader strategy to combat global warming and drive industries to take responsibility for their environmental impact. The shipping industry stood out due to its significant carbon footprint, largely driven by fuel consumption across global maritime routes. With these new regulations, shipping companies now face increased operational costs associated with their emissions, making it imperative for them to reduce their environmental impact.

The Challenge

The shipping industry is facing significant financial and regulatory challenges due to new EU regulations that tie operational costs directly to emissions, necessitating the aggregation of annually reported Thetis MRV data to fully understand their cost and regulatory exposure.

The Solution

In collaboration with the TBL Group, a boutique consultancy specialising in carbon optimisation and market-based mechanisms, we developed the TBL Shipping Carbon Dashboard. It enables companies to meet regulatory obligations while also assessing their exposure to carbon pricing. Designed to scale, the platform handles complex data analysis, providing detailed charts, tables, and reports that allow businesses to track their carbon footprint with accuracy, identify cost-saving opportunities, and strategically navigate the evolving carbon market. This platform consolidates verified CO2 emissions data from the EU's THETIS-MRV, providing valuable insights to quantify and highlight the shipping industry's exposure to carbon pricing. Through leveraging data visualisation, it allows users to explore and track emissions trends over time. It visualises historical emissions data, such as CO2 emissions from ships, using clear, user-friendly grouped bar charts to highlight year-by-year differences.

Technologies Used:

To deliver a seamless user experience, we developed this dashboard using a combination of leading technologies. Plotly Dash was employed for the core of the dashboard's interactive data visualisations, allowing for responsive and engaging graphs. Plotly was utilised for its powerful grouped bar charts, enabling users to compare emissions data across different categories effortlessly. The system is powered by Flask, a lightweight web framework, providing a scalable and efficient platform for serving web content. Additionally, we implemented a custom preload logic mechanism, allowing the dashboard to load data in advance and significantly reduce page load times by up to 95%.

Key Features of TBL Shipping Dashboard:

• Group Bar Charts Integration Visitors are now able to compare and analyse multiple data within the same graph, enhancing visibility and allowing more efficient decision-making. The system is user-friendly and flexible with filters
• Improving the user interface By visually representing complex data in a clear, side-by-side comparison format, the dashboard enables users to quickly identify trends and get a sense of their potential exposure. This intuitive visual approach allows for more efficient analysis.
• Preloading Graphs One of the main enhancements was the implementation of a preloading mechanism, which reduced the loading time of graphs and pages by up to 95%. This major improvement has made the dashboard more responsive while displaying multiple grouped bar charts.

Results & Impact

The renewal of the TBL Shipping Dashboard brought significant improvements to TBL Group Ltd’s operations.

Key Results:

• Faster Loading Time
• From the implementation of the preloading mechanism, the loading time of the page decreases by at most 95% compared to the previous version.
• Data extension & Scalability This new dashboard has been extended to the latest data reporting period, and allows for seamless scaling as more data is needed to be displayed, without the need for additional administrative overhead.

The Future

As we continue our partnership with TBL Group, we are committed to providing ongoing maintenance and performance monitoring to ensure the TBL Shipping Dashboard remains at the forefront of carbon emissions management, and even to continue improving efficiency and client satisfaction.

For other companies facing similar challenges, our Dashboard Services offer a powerful solution. Leveraging advanced data analysis and visual tools, we empower businesses to make informed decisions that not only meet regulatory requirements but also drive efficiency and sustainability.