IKEA to leverage lower-emission HMM voyages for CO2 savings

Swedish furniture giant IKEA will buy carbon credits or insets from HMM to claim a reduction in its Scope 3 emissions, which are emissions across its supply chain.

PHOTO: Bunkering of HMM TACOMA with biofuel sourced by GS Caltex at the Port of Busan. HMM

South Korean container line HMM, formerly known as Hyundai Merchant Marine, offers a low-emission shipment carbon insetting service. The company gives its customers the option of purchasing carbon credits for their shipments, which are equivalent to shipments made on HMM's biofuel-fuelled vessels.

Carbon credits equivalent to the emissions saved by bunkering some of the HMM vessels with B30 biofuel blends are infused in the program. The B30 blend consists of 30% biofuel derived from used cooking oil methyl ester (UCOME) and 70% HSFO.

According to the agreement with IKEA, HMM will bunker some of its vessels on the Far East-India-Mediterranean route with B30 blend. It expects to save up to 11,500 mt of CO2-equivalent (CO2e) emissions during the term of the agreement from March 2024 to February 2025.

“The amount of CO2e emissions (11,500 tonnes) saved through this green partnership with IKEA is capable of transporting 14,534 TEU worth of Zero Emission Cargo from Asia (Busan) to Europe (Rotterdam),” it claims.

HMM will allocate carbon credits equivalent to the amount of CO2e emissions saved through the use of the B30 blend on its vessels to IKEA, using the mass balance principle.

In this context, the mass balance principle refers to the accounting method used to track and allocate the GHG reduction equivalent of biofuel usage on HMM’s ships. This indicates that its customers can buy carbon credits from HMM even if their actual shipments are made on HMM’s fossil fuel-powered vessels, due to the mass-balance concept.

“Due to mass balance concept, customers can reduce their Scope 3 GHG emissions regardless of the transport service of which actual customer’s cargo is onboard. In other words, no physical connection to the ship is required and customers still can claim to benefit of lower emissions,” it said.

The companies have not disclosed how much biofuel IKEA has bought credits for or how many of HMM's vessels are currently running on biofuel.

By Konica Bhatt

Please get in touch with comments or additional info to news@engine.online