Sustainability Report 2020 published: “Tapping the future of shipping”

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, Hapag-Lloyd made good progress on sustainability-related issues in 2020 – ecologically, socially, qualitatively and economically. Our newest sustainability report details the measures we have taken and their results while at the same time describing what Hapag-Lloyd aims to achieve in the years ahead: to make the future of shipping even more sustainable.

Good progress made

In the period from 2008 to 2019, Hapag-Lloyd already succeeded in reducing its CO2 emissions per TEU-kilometre by 50 percent. Since 1 January 2020, Hapag-Lloyd has also been operating the vessels in its fleet using IMO 2020-compliant low-sulphur fuel oil, thereby reducing its sulphur-oxide emissions by around 70 percent compared to the previous year. In addition, fuel savings of roughly 15 percent were achieved on 39 vessels by removing fouling from their outer hulls. What’s more, Hapag-Lloyd is the first shipping company in the world that has converted a large container ship to dual-fuel propulsion, so that it can operate using liquefied natural gas (LNG). In a test phase, biofuels based on used cooking oil were also used. Moreover, orders have been placed for six state-of-the-art container ships – each with a capacity of more than 23,500 TEU – whose fuel-efficient high-pressure dual-fuel engines will also be able to operate using LNG, thereby reducing CO2 emissions by between roughly 15 and 25 percent.

Efficiency advantages remain

Container ships transport a total of about 90 percent of all goods around the world, and they are still the most efficient means of transport when it comes to transporting large quantities of goods, including from an environmental point of view. Per TEU-kilometre, a train emits almost 400 grams of CO2, a truck more than 1,000 grams, and a plane even over 7,000 grams. In contrast, Hapag-Lloyd’s container ships currently emit around 40 grams of CO2 per TEU-kilometre.

More investment required

Yet even with these efficiency-related advantages, it is clear that much more needs to be done for climate protection. Indeed, climate change will remain the biggest challenge in the years ahead, and more will need to be invested in research and development related to propulsion concepts and eco-friendly fuels if the goal of achieving climate neutrality in shipping is to be reached. Shipping already accounts for 3 percent of all CO2 emissions today, and this must be further reduced in the future. That is also why our new sustainability report bears the title: “Tapping the future of shipping”.

“We have made a lot of progress in all sustainability dimensions. At the same time, we are conscious of the fact that we also have a very great responsibility when it comes to climate protection. We will therefore continue to work hard to modernise our fleet and to reduce our carbon footprint. This will likewise remain an essential part of our new sustainability strategy, which we will be publishing later this year. At its core, it is about continuously increasing our contribution to sustainability-related efforts and making incremental improvements,” says Rolf Habben Jansen, CEO of Hapag-Lloyd.

Setting the course for the future

With its new sustainability strategy, Hapag-Lloyd will set itself specific targets for the next 10 years. One was already announced in March 2021, when Hapag-Lloyd successfully placed a “sustainability-linked bond” that is linked to a clearly defined sustainability target: By 2030, the CO2 intensity of Hapag-Lloyd’s own fleet is to be reduced by 60 percent compared with 2008, the reference year of the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Improvements in the CO2 intensity will be measured and annually disclosed according to the so-called Average Efficiency Ratio (AER) indicator, which was 11.68 in 2008 and is expected to fall to 4.67 by 2030. The AER provides information on CO2 intensity measured in grams of CO2 per tonne-mile (gCO2/dwt*nm).

You can find Hapag-Lloyd’s Sustainability Report 2020 here:
https://www.hapag-lloyd.com/en/about-us/sustainability/sustainability-report.html