Greencarrier Liner Agency and Evergreen Line share the value of providing customers with environmental-friendly and sustainable transport solutions. To do this, we are always focusing on developing our ways of working. In this blog article, I will do a short recap of a few of our ongoing environmental actions. I will also include some of my own thoughts regarding environmental issues in general and the future focus of environmental work in the container shipping industry in particular.
Optimising vessel navigation and minimising vessel emission
Evergreen Line continues their long-term efforts to minimise the environmental impact of their vessels to contribute to a more sustainable future. In a previous blog article, we described how Evergreen works to optimise the vessel navigation in eco-friendly ways. This includes, for example, the building project of ten new B-type vessels with optimised hulls, propellers and engines. Improvements that enhance fuel efficiency save energy and reduce emissions in future vessel operations. Also, there is a focus on voyage planning to protect the marine environment and weather routing to minimise the negative effects of winds, waves and currents. Optimising vessel speed is another important factor to reduce unnecessary fuel consumption.
Apart from optimising vessel navigation to become more eco-friendly, Evergreen is taking more environmental actions to minimise the emissions of vessels. One initiative is to use a Ship Energy Efficiency Management Plan (SEEMP). The aim of the plan is to establish procedures to improve the energy efficiency of a ship in a cost-effective manner. Earlier this year, Evergreen Line was also awarded for their performance in a voluntary environmental and ecological protection program. The initiative aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions of vessels and avoid whale collisions by slow sailing speeds in California’s Santa Barbara Channel region.
Encouraging sustainable transports
Since Greencarrier Liner Agency is the agent for Evergreen Line, the environmental actions described above are also big parts of ours. Besides, we always evaluate our suppliers’ environmental actions and approaches to sustainability. In addition to these overarching actions, we are also conducting several other initiatives with the same purpose.
As an initiative from our side, for example we make our offices more environmental-friendly and sustainable. The concept involves everything from choosing the most sustainable coffee to reduce paper consumption and electricity. We strive to be paperless in our offices whenever it is possible and encourage our customers to choose our e-invoice solution. In a broader perspective, we always make our customers aware of the most sustainable solution for a specific transport. We do this by, for example, comparing container transportation with transports by truck, especially within intra European trades.
High demands on container shipping companies to take environmental actions
The environmental focus does not only come from the shipping companies. Today, many customers are pushing and evaluating their subcontractors’ level of sustainability and environmental focus. We are proud over the fact that one of our customers at Greencarrier Liner Agency, has awarded us with 96 % success in their sustainability scoring. Furthermore, customers are asking us to provide them with statistics of their own yearly consumption of energy and emission from their transports. Statistics that are used internally to follow up on how their emissions have reduced compared to previous years in business.
Even though a lot is being made in order to fight climate change, we have a long way to go. A big challenge is that in many countries, the local legislation is still not supporting environmental-friendly solutions. Initiatives such as using HCT (High Capacity Transport), or what we call “Eco trucks”, are not enough to turn the critical situation around, but it is a part of it. In order to reach extensive change, it is essential that we all contribute together, at all levels.
The future trends of combined transportation and eco trucking
My belief is that an EU level legislation is needed to ensure this kind of cooperation. We will see many changes in transportation, as a result of the Paris climate agreement. Ocean container transportation is one area with great emission reductions. Also, the increased number of rail connections between China and Europe help replace air freight and hence, reduce emissions.
In the near future, I see a few trends when it comes to environmental actions within the transportation industry. Firstly, electric trucks and cars will become more and more common. Manufacturing companies Cummins and Tesla have already launched electric trucks. These do not yet have enough weight capacity, but the development continues rapidly. Secondly, another trend is utilising bigger trucks and combined transportation solutions. This enables to maximize space and reduces the number of deliveries in efficient way. Furthermore, the development of truck engines to reduce emissions will continue. Eco trucking is a great result of this, where emissions are decreased while efficiency is improved.
I hope that this blog article provided you with some new insights. What is your view regarding the future focus of environmental actions? Share your thoughts with a comment below! Also, find more interesting blog articles in our Knowledge Center. Until next time, let’s get social with us!
