Ocean cargo shipping becomes “greener” still

BSR’s Clean Cargo Working Group’s 2014 “Global Maritime Trade Lane Emissions Factors” report—which provides data from more than 2,900 ships, representing around 85 percent of global ocean container capacity—indicates that average carbon-dioxide emissions for global ocean container transport have declined year on year, and by nearly 8 percent between 2012 and 2013.

While changes in carrier representation or global trade conditions may account for part of the emissions reductions described in the report, the continued performance improvement is also attributed to carrier fleet efficiency and year-on-year improvements in data quality.

The report, which includes data from 23 of the world’s leading ocean container carriers, helps global ocean transport providers and their shipping customers to measure, evaluate, and report on environmental performance data.

Additionally, for the first time, the report includes aggregated average utilization factors for each trade lane. Users can include this data in carbon-footprint calculations as a more accurate approach to calculating shipment-level transport performance. The analysis of the data over the two-year period assessed show that the average utilization across all the largest trade lanes is close to 70 percent, with some variation from year to year.

BSR’s Clean Cargo Working Group (CCWG) is in its 11th year and has developed industry-leading calculation and reporting methodologies for carriers to report environmental performance data to their customers in a credible, standardized format. Global brands use these data to calculate and reduce the environmental impact of transporting their goods.

“By reporting using a standardized methodology, the ocean container sector is doing its part to improve environmental performance and address its emissions that contribute to climate change,” said Nate Springer, BSR’s Manager, Advisory Services, and CCWG Project Manager. “This level of transparency enables benchmarking and comparison among carriers.”

The report features the group’s fifth-annual release of its carbon-dioxide global emissions factors table, providing high-quality, trade-lane-specific emissions factors that companies can use to determine the carbon footprint of moving goods.

“Transport buyers in CCWG use these results in procurement to monitor, evaluate, and improve environmental performance within their transport supply chain,” added Springer.

“Marks & Spencer relies on CCWG for the reliable and accurate data we can use to compare carrier environmental performance. It is important to the environmental goals for our Plan A program,” said Barry Wallace, Marks & Spencer’s Logistics Manager, International Freight. “We also appreciate the role of the group in harmonizing developments in methodology across other modes of logistics.”

CCWG’s Global Maritime Trade Lane Emissions Factors is available online at www.bsr.org/en/our-insights/report-view/global-maritime-trade-lane-emissions-factors.