INTERVIEW: Demand-driven approach can speed up green fuel adoption – Ship It Zero
Leading global retailers pushing for zero-emission shipping could help speed up the transition to cleaner marine fuels, the co-founders of the Ship It Zero campaign told ENGINE.
PHOTO: A containership owned by the Mediterranean Shipping Company. MSC
A recent report published by Ship It Zero, an environmental campaign advocating for emissions reductions in the shipping sector, found that global retail giants such as Amazon, Walmart, Nike and Samsung had made no significant progress in reducing emissions from their shipping operations.
The Ship It Zero campaign is spearheaded by environmental non-profits like US-based Pacific Environment and Stand.earth and climate activists across the shipping and retail sectors. It urges major retailers to commit to zero-emission shipping by 2030 and cargo shipping companies by 2040.
Its inaugural report evaluated cargo companies Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), Cosco, Hyundai Marine Merchant (HMM), A.P. Moller-Maersk, CMA CGM, Hapag Lloyd, Ocean Network Express (ONE), Evergreen, Yang Ming, and Pacific International Lines (PIL).
The study found that barring Maersk, other cargo shipping majors planned to phase out greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, a decade later than the recommended deadline.
Ocean shipping emissions must plateau by 2025 before decreasing thereafter to limit global warming to 1.5°C, Stand.earth's shipping campaign director, Kendra Ulrich, explained. “Both cargo owners and cargo carriers must act now to achieve the reductions that are so urgently needed, even as the shipping sector continues to grow,” she added.
Demand-driven green transition
Such findings underscore the need for incentives to encourage the shipping industry to invest in and develop alternative fuels and infrastructure to facilitate their use.
“The clearest incentive is demand,” Ship It Zero lead at Pacific Environment, Eric Leveridge told ENGINE.
Pacific Environment and Stand.earth are co-authors of Ship It Zero’s latest report. In separate interviews with ENGINE, both Ulrich and Leveridge emphasised cooperation between retailers, shipping companies and port authorities to bolster alternative fuel uptake.
“We want retailers to be loud and clear with their desire for zero-emission shipping, particularly given that the vast majority of companies have decarbonization goals at a companywide level. As demand for these offerings increases, then carriers can respond with the investments necessary to begin making an impact at the industry level,” argued Leveridge.
Growing demand for zero-emission shipping from cargo owners would create "the market certainty” to accelerate investment in low- and zero-emission fuels and technologies, Ulrich added. “Retailers can and should institute logistics policies that prioritise clean ocean shipping, creating the demand that carriers will need to meet.”
They also made a case for hydrogen-derived fuels with zero-emission potential coupled with energy efficiency methods and shore power as effective solutions to reduce shipping emissions.
Leveridge deemed green methanol a short-term solution but harboured hopes for ammonia and hydrogen in the long run if production could be scaled up. “We do not, however, endorse the use of liquified natural gas (LNG), as it is still a fossil fuel and produces methane, which has even more damaging warming potential than CO2,” he said.
Ocean shipping will require multiple solutions to achieve net-zero emissions, according to Ulrich. "There is no one single fuel that will replace all fossil fuels in the maritime sector."
By Konica Bhatt
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