Sustainability in Ocean Freight
Let’s do the right thing together
Book the better. Make the choice of your shipment pay off for both people and planet. Choose biofuel for your ocean freight today. Verified, documented and certified – just like your commitment to sustainability.
Cutting out greenhouse gases
With ocean freight you already chose the transport mode with the lowest carbon emissions. But even the most sustainable cause sometimes needs some help in accelerating the environmental commitment. That’s why we made an upfront investment in biofuel to make it easy for you to act now. Reach your goals and help to make ocean freight carbon-neutral* on a global scale.
Bring on the benefits with marine biofuel
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We have made an upfront investment in marine biofuels with three shipping lines across all alliances for you, so you can choose your preferred volumes on your trade lanes.
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We secured 17,000 metric tons in 2023 of best available sustainable biofuel on the market - compliant to EU RED II Annex IX, Part A+B, that excludes palm oil and its residuals (e.g. PFAD) and has no indirect land use change (ILUC).
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The Mass Balance Concept is a solution that makes it possible to use several types of energy within the ship fleet and attribute them to different shipments, up to the quantities actually used. This means you can choose marine biofuel and get it allocated to your shipments, regardless of which vessel is carrying your goods.
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We have the ambition to offer a 100% net emission reduction of the customer's port to port ocean freight volumes. This can be achieved by a voluntarily overallocation of additional marine biofuel quantities to our customer's volume.
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We are audited by 3rd party auditor TÜV Süd and will issue your declaration of biofuel usage and related Scope 3 emission reduction.
Delivering carbon neutrality by 2040**
We think ocean freight is not just about reaching a port, but also about reaching your sustainability goals along the way. That's why we are taking concrete steps to become carbon-neutral** by 2040. It all starts with marine biofuel: By replacing fossil fuel with sustainable biofuel, we are contributing to a real change in our industry towards a more sustainable future and can offer customers carbon neutral* ocean freight. And because decarbonizing freight is best achieved through cooperation, we team up with shipping line partners, innovators in sustainable technology as well as governmental and private institutions like the Smart Freight Center, Getting to Zero Coalition and the Arctic Commitment.
*With additional allocation of biofuels to compensate for upstream emissions of biofuels
**Using a maximum of 10% permanent carbon removal/offsets
European Emission Trading System (ETS)
The EU Green Deal, as announced in 2019, is a plan for net zero emissions by 2050. To ensure that this can be implement, structural adjustments are required. This is where the Fit for 55 package, as announced in 2021, comes in. It is a set of policy initiatives designed to help Europe achieve the goal of a net emission reduction of at least 55% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. The EU Emission Trading System is one of the regulations included in that plan, which is based on a “cap and trade” scheme. With this, a maximum cap is set on the total amount of greenhouse gases that can be emitted by companies inside the EU area within a given year for certain industries. Companies subject to EU ETS must buy allowances based on the amount of greenhouse gases they emit and surrender these accordingly.
The EU ETS will be extended to maritime transport emissions as of January 2024 to help Europe achieve the goal of a net emission reduction. The system covers 100% of emissions that occur between two EU ports as well as 50% of emissions from voyages starting or ending outside of the EU with a phase-in period starting with 40% for verified emissions from 2024, 70% of emissions in 2025, and 100% as of 2026. As a consequence, a surcharge will be implemented as of January 2024 which is applicable for all shipments on board of vessels calling European ports. The costs for allowances change according to the auctioned value and is therefore adjusted in line with the performance of the index.
