IKEA invests in a pilot pro­gramme to bring bio­fuel to the ship­ping industry

Today, the glob­al ship­ping industry is using fossil-based heavy fuel oil to power ves­sels. The heavy fuel oil is the source of the vast major­ity of the industry’s car­bon out­put. By 2020 all ships will be required to burn fuel with less than 0.5 per cent sul­phur con­tent and last year, the Inter­na­tion­al Mari­time Organ­isa­tion, IMO, decided to com­mit the glob­al ship­ping sec­tor to halve their green­house gas emis­sions by 2050. Recently, a brand new bio­fuel was launched by mar­ine bio­fuels pion­eer, Good­Fuels as a replace­ment for fossil-based heavy fuel oil. The fuel is the cul­min­a­tion of extens­ive research and devel­op­ment, and this is the fuel IKEA Trans­port & Logist­ics Ser­vices are now invest­ing in to for the pilot pro­gramme for more sus­tain­able ship­ping. ​“Our long-term ambi­tion at IKEA Trans­port & Logist­ics Ser­vices is to reduce green­house gas emis­sions by 70 per cent per trans­port ship­ment by 2030. This is a huge ambi­tion since ship­ping over the ocean makes up almost 50 per cent of our car­bon foot­print regard­ing trans­ports,” says Elisa­beth Mun­ck af Rosenschöld, Head of Sus­tain­ab­il­ity, Glob­al Trans­port & Logist­ics Ser­vices. The bio heavy fuel oil is made from waste and con­tains used cook­ing oil and forest residue. There is no need to upgrade exist­ing engines so the fuel could be adop­ted by the industry without sig­ni­fic­ant invest­ments to the fleet. ​“To become cli­mate pos­it­ive and to achieve our ambi­tious tar­gets, we need a diver­si­fied port­fo­lio of solu­tions, and bio heavy fuel oil is one piece of the puzzle. This is an advanced bio­fuel con­tain­ing no vir­gin mater­i­als and a clear move towards cir­cu­lar­ity,” says Rashmi Hahn, Head of Cat­egory Ocean, Glob­al Trans­port & Logist­ics Ser­vices. The pilot pro­gramme for bio­fuel-powered con­tain­er ves­sels is a col­lab­or­a­tion between IKEA Trans­port & Logist­ics Ser­vices, ship­ping com­pany CMA CGM, the Good Ship­ping Pro­gramme and the port of Rot­ter­dam. On 19 March one CMA CGM ves­sel will be fuelled with the bio­fuel to trans­port IKEA goods, amongst oth­er things. For IKEA, this pilot pro­gramme is a way to influ­ence the ocean industry to move towards low-car­bon ship­ping and to drive demand for bio­fuels. ​“Through our par­ti­cip­a­tion, we send a clear sig­nal to our cus­tom­ers, the ocean industry and oth­er ship­pers on our com­mit­ment to de-car­bon­ise and to become cli­mate pos­it­ive,” says Elisa­beth Mun­ck af Rosenschöld. Is the ship­ping industry ready for a move­ment towards biofuel? ​“This is a pilot pro­gramme, and the bio­fuel can­not replace fossil-based heavy fuel oil yet, the volumes are not there. But we believe that this will be an altern­at­ive in the future and that is why we invest in this col­lab­or­a­tion – we can­not change things on our own, but we can send sig­nals to the industry and cre­ate a demand,” says Rashmi Hahn. The reduc­tion of car­bon diox­ide will be care­fully stud­ied and eval­u­ated dur­ing and after the pilot pro­gramme. ​“With a suc­cess­ful pilot com­pleted, our inten­tion is to put the equi­val­ent of at least all our con­tain­ers out of Rot­ter­dam on bio­fuel,” says Elisa­beth Mun­ck af Rosenschöld. Facts and Figures

• The bio heavy fuel oil is func­tion­ally equi­val­ent to pet­ro­leum-derived mar­ine fuels – a so called ​“drop-in” fuel.
• No modi­fic­a­tion is required to the engine or the fuel infrastructure.
• The bio heavy fuel oil meets the most strin­gent sus­tain­ab­il­ity criteria.
• The bio heavy fuel oil is com­pletely derived from forest residues and waste oil products.
• In the planned land­mark refuel­ing, the bio­fuel oil con­sists of waste used cook­ing oil and forest residues – both of which have been sourced and pro­cessed in Europe.
• The bio heavy fuel oil is expec­ted to deliv­er 80 – 90% well-to-pro­peller CO2 reduc­tion versus fossil equi­val­ents, and vir­tu­ally elim­in­ate sul­phur oxide (SOx) emissions.

The Good­Ship­ping Program  The Good­Ship­ping Pro­gram is a sus­tain­able ship­ping ini­ti­at­ive that offers com­pan­ies the oppor­tun­ity to make con­tain­er ship­ments less pol­lut­ing. By offer­ing a way to change the fossil fuels with sus­tain­able fuels. www​.good​ship​ping​.org CMA CGM
The CMA CGM Group is a world lead­er of mari­time trans­port. Its 509 ships serve more than 420 ports world­wide on the 5 con­tin­ents. Source: IKEA, press release, 12, March, 2019