Posted on: 07/27/09

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from shipping activities are significant and account for about 600-800m tonnes of carbon dioxide, or 5% of global emissions. This was more than double those from aviation and about twice that generated by the whole UK.

However, on a per distance basis GHG emissions from sea freight are about 1-2% of those from air and about 17% of those from trucking. Because sea freight is a more carbon efficient mode of transport, shipping companies are investing in container technologies which prolong the storage life of perishable food products and are also more carbon efficient. Sea freight will continue to be significant.

GHG emission figures for sea freight activities by New Zealand industry are hard to find. However, given we are a net exporting country sending more than 99% of our produce by sea, emissions will be a significant component of our exports’ footprint. Foreign consumers are becoming increasingly aware of and sensitive to the carbon footprint of the products they buy and freight is typically a large component of this.

In partnership with Airshed CATALYST® has developed a simple tool to provide you with a means to measure GHG emissions from sea transport. Users choose between two classes of cargo ship, select the departure and destination ports, and enter the weights of up to 5 containers per shipment. The calculator uses vessel emission factors from DEFRA and shipping route distances from AXS Marine. To visit the calculator, click here.

Print