IKEA chooses Hapag-Lloyd for greener shipping from Asia

The contract with Hapag-Lloyd runs from March this year through to February 2025 and will see the furniture retailer using the container line’s highest product option for biofuels Ship Green 100.

According to the container line the Ship Green 100 product offers the shipper scope 3 reporting with an emission factor of zero through using waste- and residue-based biofuel instead of conventional marine fuel oil. Use of the service should reduce Ikea’s emissions by around 100,000 tonnes of CO2 across the year.

“It’s through efforts like this one that we can reduce immediate emissions from ocean shipping in the short-term”, says Dariusz Mroczek, Category Area Transport Manager, IKEA Supply Chain Operations. 

IKEA has goal to reduce the relative GHG emissions from product transportation by 70% by 2030, and for zero emissions from heavy truck transport and ocean shipping by 2040.

The move to biofuels with Hapag-Lloyd is not seen as long-term way for IKEA to reach zero emissions. “However, biofuel is not the ultimate solution and we need to continue to collaborate to make the necessary shift toward zero emission fuels and technologies,” said Mroczek.

Danny Smolders, Managing Director Global Sales at Hapag-Lloyd, commented “Ship Green is an important aspect of our decarbonisation journey and brings us one step closer to our goal of net-zero fleet operations by 2045.”

Related:Hapag-Lloyd cuts carbon footprint by 800,000 tonnes

As 100% CO2e emission avoidance the Hapag-Lloyd product also offers 50% and 25% reductions depending on customer preference.

It is the second major green shipping deal that Hapag-Lloyd has announced in the space of a month. In mid-April the Zero Emission Maritime Buyers Alliance (ZEMBA) revealed in had chosen the German line as winner for its first tender for ocean shipping that achieved at least a 90% reduction of greenhouse gases on a lifecycle basis relative to fossil fuel powered service.

Under the contract ZEMBA expects members to collectively avoid at least 82,000 metric tonnes of CO2e over two years through Hapag-Lloyd’s independently certified and exclusively waste-based biomethane service. 

ZEMBA members including founding members Amazon, Patagonia, and Tchibo alongside Bauhaus, Brooks Running, DB Journey, Green Worldwide Shipping, Meta, New Balance, Nike, REI Co-op, and Sport-Thieme.