Dutch Sus­tain­able Growth Coali­tion part­ners with Maersk in world’s largest mari­time bio­fuel pilot

A pilot, using up to 20% sus­tain­able second-gen­er­a­tion bio­fuels on a large triple‑E ocean ves­sel will sail 25.000 naut­ic­al miles from Rot­ter­dam to Shang­hai and back on bio­fuel blends alone, a world’s first at this scale, sav­ing 1,5 mil­lion kilo­grams CO2 and 20.000 kilo­grams of sul­phur. DSGC mem­bers and Maersk all agree that tack­ling harm­ful emis­sions related to ship­ping is urgently needed, and that cross-industry col­lab­or­a­tion is required to devel­op, test and imple­ment new solu­tions. The DSGC mem­bers, many of which are cus­tom­ers to Maersk, played a crit­ic­al role. They ini­ti­ated and spon­sor the pilot. Shell, acted as the fuel sup­pli­er for the pilot, and Maersk played the role as oper­at­ing part­ner. Sus­tain­ably sourced second-gen­er­a­tion bio­fuels are just one pos­sible solu­tion for the decar­bon­iz­a­tion of ocean ship­ping. Longer term, break­throughs in fuel and tech­nic­al devel­op­ment (i.e. e‑fuels) and the invest­ment into com­mer­cial sup­ply chains are needed to achieve sig­ni­fic­ant emis­sions reduc­tions. ​“DSGC com­pan­ies join in action to con­trib­ute to the UN SDGs. With this ini­ti­at­ive we focus on Cli­mate Action (SDG 13). We have taken the ini­ti­at­ive to part­ner with A.P. Moller-Maersk on this import­ant effort,” says Jan Peter Balken­ende, Chair of the DSGC. ​“This pilot test­ing bio­fuel on a cross ocean ship­ping lane, marks an import­ant step. How­ever, many more innov­a­tions are urgently needed. These can only be suc­cess­fully developed, tested and imple­men­ted in industry col­lab­or­a­tions like this.” Søren Toft, Chief Oper­at­ing Officer A.P. Moller – Maersk com­men­ted: ​“To reach our net zero CO2 tar­get by 2050, in the next 10 years we need big break­throughs. Maersk can­not do this alone. That is why this col­lab­or­a­tion with DSGC and its mem­bers is such an import­ant step in identi­fy­ing and bring­ing low car­bon solu­tions to life. It laid the found­a­tion for how cross-industry part­ners can work togeth­er to take steps towards a more sus­tain­able future. We wel­come oth­ers to join in our efforts, as this jour­ney is just begin­ning.” Søren Toft added ​“Bio­fuels are one of the viable solu­tions that can be imple­men­ted in the short and medi­um term. Through this pilot, we aim to learn more about using bio­fuels in gen­er­al, and to under­stand the pos­sib­il­it­ies around increas­ing its usage in a sus­tain­able and eco­nom­ic­al way.” Ship­ping accounts for 90% of trans­por­ted goods and 3% of total glob­al CO2-emis­sions, and is set to rise to 15% by 2050 if left unchecked. The CO2 sav­ings of this jour­ney alone equates to the annu­al CO2 emit­ted by over 200 house­holds in a year or 12 mill km trav­elled in an aver­age car which is 300 times around the world. The voy­age will take place between March and June 2019. About the bio­fuel used: The bio­fuel used in this pilot is a so called ​‘second gen­er­a­tion’ bio­fuel, pro­duced from waste sources, in this case used cook­ing oil (UCOME oil). Second gen­er­a­tion bio­fuel means the bio­fuel comes from waste products. This can be used cook­ing oil, forest residues, wood chip waste etc. This bio­fuel is ISCC Cer­ti­fied, mean­ing that the whole chain is 3^rd party cer­ti­fied. The power of bio­fuel is that it can to a cer­tain extent replace / blen­ded with con­ven­tion­al (fossil) fuels, without hav­ing to make big tech­nic­al adapt­a­tions to the engines or require a com­plete new engine etc. About Maersk A.P. Moller — Maersk is an integ­rated con­tain­er logist­ics com­pany work­ing to con­nect and sim­pli­fy its cus­tom­ers’ sup­ply chains. As the glob­al lead­er in ship­ping ser­vices, we oper­ate in 130 coun­tries and employ roughly 76,000 people. Our mis­sion is to enable and facil­it­ate glob­al sup­ply chains and provide oppor­tun­it­ies for our cus­tom­ers to trade glob­ally. Source: Maerks, press release by Lejla Charif, 22 March 2019