DHL Global Forwarding, the air and ocean freight specialist of Deutsche Post DHL Group, has signed an agreement with Hapag-Lloyd, a worldwide liner shipping company, for the use of advanced biofuels. As an initial step, Hapag-Lloyd will ship 18,000 TEU of DHL’s volume using advanced biofuels, which is equivalent to a reduction of 14,000 tons of Well-to-Wake* CO2-emisisons. The two companies share the vision of decarbonizing container shipping and logistics. With their project, they aim to demonstrate the scalability of sustainable transport solutions and the relevance of sustainable fuels in today’s market. Both DHL and Hapag-Lloyd are pledging for a uniform industry standard, following the insetting approach.
“We are very happy to have signed this contract on using a considerable amount of advanced biofuel with DHL, as we both share the values and ambition to protect our environment and move towards a greener future. Biofuel will play a significant role in the upcoming years on our path to becoming net-zero carbon by 2045. This project will bring us a step closer to offering our customers biofuel-powered transportation as a commercial product and thereby to supporting them in their efforts to reduce their carbon footprint,” says Danny Smolders, Managing Director Global Sales at Hapag-Lloyd.
Advanced biofuels are based on raw biological materials, such as used cooking oil and other waste products. This material is used to manufacture a fatty acid methyl ester (FAME), which is then mixed with varying proportions of low sulphur fuel oil. Compared to standard fuels, this pure biofuel product lowers greenhouse gas emissions by more than 80 percent.
DHL’s and Hapag-Lloyd’s sustainability strategy is to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 and 2045 respectively. Hapag-Lloyd has been testing advanced biofuels since 2020 and offers a carbon reduced transport solution utilizing biofuel blends instead of traditional fossil marine fuel oil (MFO). The resulting reduction in carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions can be offered as a “Green Product” on a Twenty-Foot Equivalent Unit (TEU) basis and thereby transferred to customers in order to help reduce their Scope 3 emissions.
DHL’s GoGreen Plus service paves the way to transition to clean and sustainable transportation. CO2 emissions are reduced in both air and ocean freight, and additionally, the remaining part of the supply chain is made climate neutral by full lifecycle emission compensation. The product offering GoGreen Plus is part of the Group’s mid-term sustainability roadmap for 2030 and contributes to the sub-target of having at least 30 percent of fuel requirements covered by sustainable fuels. To reduce CO2 emissions in line with the Paris Climate Agreement, the Group will spend €7bn in sustainable fuel and clean technologies by 2030.
