New DHL initiative to make ocean freight more environmentally friendly
DHL Global Forwarding and the GoodShipping Program, the world’s first initiative to decarbonise the container shipping industry by changing the marine fuel mix, exclusively collaborate in making ocean freight transports more environmentally friendly. With the signed memorandum of understanding DHL Global Forwarding is the first to offer its customers the opportunity to select next generation marine biofuels rather than fossil fuels for their transports by sea.
“The partnership with the GoodShipping Program is a unique opportunity to drive change within the ocean freight industry and to contribute to DHL’s environmental target of zero emissions by 2050. Our joint advanced biofuel service is designed as a supplement to our GoGreen Climate Neutral services or as an alternative, giving our customers even more opportunity to reduce their carbon footprint,” Kathrin Brost, Global Head Customer Intelligence & GoGreen, DHL Global Forwarding points out.
Deutsche Post DHL Group has been exploring renewable fuels as an important lever to minimize ocean freights’ impact on the environment. Key criteria are that they are produced sustainably and do not compete for example with food production for land use. Following strict sustainability standards, the waste-based biofuels must meet the requirements to be qualified as the cleanest biofuels currently available on the market. Based on a like to like approach, the current container fleet can bunker and burn advanced marine biofuel without any technical modifications.
The new service founds on the principle that greenhouse gas reductions are allocated to the customers. Each customer signing up for the service, orders green TEU-kilometers. The corresponding volumes of advanced biofuel will be used onboard of vessels of selected ocean carrier partners. The more shippers use the new service, the higher the share of advanced biofuels for container shipping and the reduction of carbon emissions. The environmental benefits are quantified and protected from double claims and the CO2-benefits are allocated to the customer.
Apart from reducing carbon emissions to zero, biofuels are essentially free of sulphur. The switch to clean-burning biofuels allows for very substantial reductions of particulate matter and some improvement of the performance. The new service will be available to DHL’s customers by early 2018.
In 2012, shipments transported via ocean freight in logistics accounted for approximately 2.2 percent of all carbon emissions globally and it is expected that this could increase to 17 percent of total global emissions by 2050, therefore underscoring the important role that carbon reduction can play within the shipping industry.
