New types of hull coatings make ships more energy efficient by making them slipperier. These coatings are so slippery, in fact, that barnacles, tubeworms, and other underwater organisms can’t attach to the hull. “Chemically, it’s like a nonstick frying pan,” said John Willsher of AkzoNobel, the Netherlands-based paint and coatings company that developed the new line of coatings, which it calls Intersleek. Without the added drag caused by millions of tiny hitchhikers attached to their hulls, ships use less fuel—significantly less. The first ship to claim carbon credits because of the new coatings avoided 17,168 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions in 20 months because of reduced fuel usage. You would have to drive an average car more than 4 million miles to generate that same amount of CO2. International shipping contributes 3% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, so making the industry more efficient could make a big difference. Using the new coatings helps the planet in another way. The hull coatings they replace are biocides, meaning that they attempt to stop organisms from attaching by killing them. Intersleek coatings contain no biocides, so those potentially harmful chemicals are not released into the sea. A carbon offset represents the reduction of 1 metric ton (2,205 pounds) of carbon dioxide emissions. Cloverly buys offsets that meet accepted standards for being real, measurable, verifiable, permanent, and additional. "Additional" means that the carbon savings would not have happened without the offset project and that the project would not have happened unless it got certified to sell carbon offsets. Gold Standard oversees verification of the improved ship hull coatings project. You can find verification documents at https://impact.sustain-cert.com/public_projects/1054. For an interactive map of the projects in our portfolio, see https://www.cloverly.com/project-map.