DHL, GoodShipping to use biofuels to lower ocean freight's carbon footprint

December 19, 2017: As part of its green freight initiative, DHL Global Forwarding, the air and ocean freight specialist of Deutsche Post DHL group joined hands with the GoodShipping Program to offer its customers the option to select Next-Gen marine biofuels than fossil fuels for sea transports.

GoodShipping Program is the world's first initiative to decarbonize the container shipping industry by changing the marine fuel mix, which exclusively collaborates in making ocean freight transports more environmentally friendly.

According to reports, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was recently signed between DHL Global Forwarding and GoodShipping Program. The new service is expected to be available to DHL's customers by early 2018.

“The partnership with the GoodShipping Program is a unique opportunity to drive change within the ocean freight industry, and contribute to DHL's environmental target of zero emissions by 2050. Our joint advanced biofuel service is designed as an alternative to our GoGreen Climate Neutral services, which offer our customers more opportunity to reduce their carbon footprint,” said Kathrin Brost, global head customer intelligence & GoGreen of DHL Global Forwarding.

Deutsche Post DHL Group has been exploring renewable fuels as an important lever to minimise ocean freights' impact on the environment.

“DHL's mission to reach zero emission logistics by 2050 made it a perfect partner for strategic and mutually beneficial long term cooperation. Together with DHL, we provide global access to every single cargo owner that aims to help us clean up the marine fuel mix,” said Astrid Sonneveld, program director of GoodShipping.

New service is based on the principle that greenhouse gas reductions are allocated to customers. Each customer signing up for the service, orders truly green TEU-kilometers, instead of a regular shipment, with or without carbon offsets. The corresponding volumes of advanced biofuel will be used by vessels of selected ocean carrier partners during regular operations.

As more shippers use the new service, it will increase the share of advanced biofuels for container shipping, and lower carbon emissions. The environmental benefits are quantified and protected from double claims, and the CO2-benefits are allocated to the customer.

Apart from reducing carbon emissions to zero, biofuels are essentially free of sulphur. The switch to clean-burning biofuels allows substantial reduction in particulate matter, and helps in improving NOx performance.

In 2012, shipments transported via ocean freight in logistics accounted for approximately 2.2 percent of all carbon emissions globally. It's expected that the carbon emission is likely to increase to 17 percent of the total global emissions by 2050. Hence, it underscores the fact that carbon reduction can play an important role within the shipping industry.

With this development ahead, the new GoodShipping service is a crucial element in paving the way for DHL's corporate mission to reduce all logistics-related emissions to zero by 2050.