Vehicle makers do not just need to reduce the emissions their cars produce but also the pollution caused by their supply chains. While the maritime shipping industry has started to clean up its act, the sheer volume of cars and automotive components that need to be loaded onto ocean vessels and transported across the globe means it is still a dirty business.

Low-sulphur fuels have gone some way to reduce the damage cargo ships cause to the environment but because of their size, weight and the distances they need to be able to travel without refuelling, solutions for actual zero-emissions are a long way off. Nevertheless, the industry is travelling in the right direction.

Ways to drastically reduce CO2 and nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions, or switch to different fuels, would have been laughed at only 15 years ago, according to Professor Stephen Turnock, head of civil, maritime and environmental engineering at Southampton University. His colleague, Professor Dominic Hudson, professor of ship safety and efficiency, adds that the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) only started having serious discussions about emissions around 2007, introducing a cap on the sulphur content in fuel from 2010 and tightening it in 2020.

The Paris Agreement on climate change pushed the IMO to issue a statement with tougher guidelines for ocean shipping. Hudson explains: “That IMO statement is really what drives a lot of the bigger shipping companies or owners, or those who wouldn’t move. There are always those who move voluntarily but a lot of them won’t, so you need a statement from the regulator.”

Today, shipping companies are tripping over each other to announce initiatives to reduce their emissions. In February this year Wallenius Wilhemsen presented the Orcelle Wind, a concept for wind-powered ocean transport. The company is confident it could become a reality by 2025. Many others are switching vessels to biofuels and liquefied natural gas (LNG), while some including UECC and Grimaldi, invest in hybrid power.

Bridging fuels and batteries

Most will concede, however, that biofuels, LNG, compressed natural gas (CNG), and hybrid power are not, ultimately, the solution, as they still involve burning a lot of fuel and pumping emissions into the air.