Environment

Responsibility for Oceans and Coasts

Climate-Friendly Container Shipping - Ship Green

With our digital solution Ship Green, you can join us on the path towards climate neutral shipping. Ship Green enables you to switch to biofuel and avoid 25, 50 or 100% of emissions caused on the ocean leg of your shipment. Using the “Book & Claim” approach,Hapag-Lloyd can transfer the emissions preventedthrough the use of biofuel to other seashipments using a precise calculation method.

• Ship Green

Less water resistance 

When it comes to sustainability, our focus is on equipping and modernising our fleet. We are promoting and testing alternative propulsion systems in addition to using digital solutions to optimise our processes, capacity utilisation, routes and ship design. By removing the fouling from the outer hulls of vessels, we have been able to reduce the drag and thereby the fuel consumption of these ships.

• 8% fuel savings by defouling 77 ships
  
   

Future-proof fuels 

Hapag-Lloyd is the first shipping company in the world to convert a large container ship to dual-fuel propulsion so that it can operate using liquefied natural gas (LNG). Efficient dual-fuel engines emit much less CO2. That is why we are having another 12 dual-fuel ships built, each with a capacity of 23,500+ TEU. Three of them were added to our fleet in 2023 and further nine vessels with dual-fuel propulsion will enter operation in 2024 and 2025. This way we will further reduce the carbon footprint of our overall fleet.

• 12 dual-fuel ships ordered for operation with LNG
  
  
  

Propulsion with biofuels

We have increasingly been using biofuels since 2022 in order to achieve our emission reduction targets. Our objective here is to obtain these fuels using sustainable raw materials such as used cooking oil – from which fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) is manufactured – that is mixed with fossil VLSFO in varying proportions. Greenhouse gas emissions from biofuels are over 80% lower compared to standard fuels. In 2023, 45 vessels in our fleet were refuelled with biofuels.

• 45 vessels ran on biofuels in 2023

News

• Hapag-Lloyd wins ZEMBA tender for zero-emission shipping services: In April 2024, the Zero Emission Maritime Buyers Alliance (ZEMBA) announced that Hapag-Lloyd is the winner of its first tender for ocean shipping based on biomethane that achieves at least a 90 percent reduction of greenhouse gases. Through this deal, the ZEMBA members have committed to collectively avoid at least 82,000 metric tonnes of CO2e over two years. [read more]
• Hapag-Lloyd and Seaspan to retrofit five vessels to methanol propulsion: Hapag-Lloyd and Seaspan Corporation also entered into a partnership agreement in April 2024 to retrofit and convert five 10,100 TEU container ships powered by conventional MAN S90 engines to dual-fuel engines capable of operating on methanol. Following the engine retrofit, the vessels will continue to be on long-term charter from Seaspan to Hapag-Lloyd. [read more]
• Hapag-Lloyd and IKEA collaborate to advance cleaner shipping: Hapag-Lloyd has entered a cooperation with IKEA Supply Chain Operations to decarbonise the Hapag-Lloyd container shipments originating from Asia, marking an important step towards a more sustainable maritime industry. For the period March 2024 to February 2025, both companies have agreed to use Hapag-Lloyd’s highest product option for biofuels “Ship Green 100”, which relies on waste- and residue-based biofuel instead of conventional marine fuel oil. The expected result for IKEA during this period is a CO2 emission reduction of around 100,000 tonnes. [read more]

Collaboration is key! That is why we engage in active dialogue with our stakeholders.