DHL Global Forwarding and GoodShipping Accelerate Sustainable Shipping via Insetting with 60 Million Liters of Sustainable Marine Fuel

November 03, 2022

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by Naomi Volkers (GoodShipping) As part of DHL’s GoGreen Plus service, Sustainable Marine Fuels play an important role in decarbonizing ocean freight transport; Expanded collaboration between DHL and leading insetting service by GoodShipping includes piloting a new insetting framework of the Smart Freight Centre -- DHL Global Forwarding, the air and ocean freight specialist of Deutsche Post DHL Group, and GoodShipping, the global pioneer and market leader in insetting to decarbonize the container shipping industry, are further expanding their long-standing partnership. With the latest purchase of approximately 60 million liters of Sustainable Marine Fuel, DHL will reduce a total of 180,000 tonnes CO2e TtW in shipping until 2024. This commitment is equivalent to the amount of fossil fuel used to fuel 10 container vessels on their journey from Asia to Europe. DHL Global Forwarding has been working with GoodShipping for five years, sharing the same aspiration for greener ocean freight via insetting.

“In 2017, we were the first logistics company to work with GoodShipping. An important lever in reducing our CO2 emissions is the use of sustainable fuel and GoodShipping’s insetting service complements us perfectly in this regard. They have a thorough and controlled process, meet our high sustainability standards, and they share the same goal of making logistics emission-free. We are very proud to now continue and intensify this cooperation,” says Tim Scharwath, CEO DHL Global Forwarding.

As part of their joint industry impact, DHL Global Forwarding and GoodShipping also aim to pilot a new insetting accounting framework of the Smart Freight Centre. The new framework transfers the approach of allocating emission reductions from sustainable fuels to specific customers by decoupling the accounting of the fuels’ environmental attributes from their physical flow to a general industry standard. In that way, customers can contribute to and report on emission reductions in their transport value chain even if the reduction is not physically linked to their specific transport activity.

“DHL Global Forwarding really steps up as a frontrunner in the freight forwarding industry with this commitment,” says Dirk Kronemeijer, CEO GoodShipping. “DHL’s goal to achieve net zero-emission logistics by 2050 made them a perfect partner for a strategic and mutually beneficial long-term collaboration. We can only have the greatest respect for the leadership demonstrated by this huge commitment from DHL, deepening our collaboration even further.”

DHL’s GoGreen Plus service paves the way to transition to clean and sustainable transportation. As part of this service, customers across the different divisions of Deutsche Post DHL Group are offered various solutions for minimizing logistics-related emissions and other environmental impacts along the entire supply chain, such as the use of Sustainable Fuels. Hereby a calculation is made using internationally agreed standards how much fossil volume the cargo owner would have used without any insetting service. Subsequently, this corresponding volume is replaced by truly sustainable biofuels made out of waste and residues only. With the “Book & Claim” mechanism, DHL can pass on the benefits of lower greenhouse gas emissions (Scope 3 emissions) to its customers, helping them achieve their climate targets. The product 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 greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris Climate Agreement, the Group will spend €7 billion on sustainable fuels and technologies by 2030. READ MORE

Transforming shipping through carbon insetting (GoodShipping)

DHL and GoodShipping agree 60m litre sustainable marine fuel deal (Biofuels International)

Deutsche Post DHL Group introduces Sustainability-Linked Finance Framework in line with its ambitious sustainability targets (Deutsche Post DHL)

Excerpt from GoodShipping: The concept of carbon offsetting, which enables organisations to compensate for their emissions by investing in external climate protection projects, is already widely understood and reasonably commonplace. However, it’s clear that reducing shipping’s global carbon footprint will require innovations to happen within the maritime supply chain. Therefore, a more effective approach to tackling organisations’ environmental impact is carbon insetting, which enables them to reduce emissions directly within their own sector.

The principle of insetting is put into action by GoodShipping, which offers cargo owners the possibility to transport all or part of their cargo in a carbon-neutral way. Once the cargo owner has decided on the amount of cargo that they wish to transport sustainably, GoodShipping facilitates a fuel switch to sustainable marine biofuel. In simple terms, a volume of sustainable biofuel that reduces transport emissions is fuelled into a vessel or truck that would have normally run on fossil fuel.

For hard-to-abate sectors like deep sea shipping, biofuels are currently the most practical solution to reduce emissions from shipping. Even with production and transportation process emissions included, the biofuels used by GoodShipping reduce carbon emissions by at least 80%.

Think global, and measurable

Carbon insetting encourages organisations to think differently on several levels. The most important mindset they should adopt is to see the decarbonisation challenge through global lenses and view their own individual actions as part of our collective fight against climate change.

For cargo owners, this means understanding that the sustainable marine biofuels they purchase may not be burned directly by the vessel transporting their cargo. Carbon insetting works because to improve the quality of the environment, it does not matter where in the atmosphere you substitute a material with a better alternative, as the net result for the atmosphere is the same. This is called the mass balance principle, and it gives us a way to make real impact.

With carbon insetting, what really matters is whether carbon emissions were avoided as a direct result of each cargo owner’s decisions. Therefore, another focus must be on making emissions reductions measurable and verifiable. GoodShipping’s strict carbon accounting principles ensure that any carbon reductions are only claimed once, by the cargo owner who has paid for the biofuel.

Current and future fuel options

To make carbon insetting solutions work, a critical assessment of all available fuel options is also essential. Here too, it is vital to see the bigger picture, and that’s why GoodShipping carefully selects fuels that will not have unintended consequences for the environment or communities, such as land-use issues, competition with food production or deforestation.

GoodShipping works with GoodFuels to supply sustainable biofuels to participating transport companies. A key characteristic of GoodFuels’ sustainable marine biofuels is their “drop-in” capacity, meaning that they can be burned in place of conventional fossil fuels, on their own or in a blend, without any adjustments to conventional marine engines.

While this makes advanced marine biofuels the solution of choice right now, we believe in the importance of adapting to the fast-evolving technological picture. Smart and flexible thinking will be key to assess other clean fuel options, such as ammonia and hydrogen, and integrating them to the GoodShipping solution as and when they become available.

Transforming supply chains together

Seeing the bigger picture also means being aware of the impacts of individual climate actions on the structures and supply chains that will facilitate the transition of shipping towards a zero-carbon future.

Carbon insetting is so impactful because it empowers cargo owners to take control of their own emissions and reduce them immediately, on the scale that suits their current goals and objectives. Insetting also ensures that the money spent by companies to reduce their emissions stays close to their supply chain, where it can help to accelerate the development of new technologies and future fuel innovations that will benefit the whole industry.

Bringing about the structural changes needed to decarbonise shipping will also require companies to work together and find ways to support each other. What unites all of GoodShipping’s carbon insetting pioneers, despite their diverse sectoral backgrounds and commercial interests, is an ambition to decarbonise supply chains and accelerate the energy transition.

As more cargo owners join, the share of sustainable biofuels used on cargo ships will increase, thereby even further reducing the amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere. And the more companies that throw their weight behind solutions such as carbon insetting, the more we can collectively forge zero-carbon supply chains and create a better world. READ MORE