Volvo Cars switches to biodiesel for ocean freight; cutting fossil CO2 emissions by 84%

Yearly tens of hundreds of containers of manufacturing materials destined for Volvo Automobiles factories are carried internationally’s oceans on container ships. Any longer, most of those seafaring journeys are made with renewable gas as an alternative of conventional fossil gas.

The primary international automotive maker to announce such a swap, Volvo calculates it is going to obtain a direct discount in fossil CO₂ emissions from intercontinental ocean freight by 55,000 tonnes over a 12 months. Because of the renewable gas, CO₂ emissions are diminished by a minimum of 84% (Properly-to-Wake, WTW) in comparison with fossil gas. The discount is equal to the CO₂ emissions of a full truck driving across the equator about 1,200 instances.

The gas used is Fatty Acid Methyl Esters (FAME) (biodiesel) and relies on renewable and sustainable sources, primarily waste cooking oil. No feedstock associated to palm oil or palm oil manufacturing is used.

Volvo will use renewable gas for inbound ocean container transports of manufacturing materials destined for manufacturing vegetation based mostly in Europe and the Americas, in addition to all spare elements distribution made globally by ocean container transports.

Renewable gas is just not the top recreation for eradicating CO₂ from the world’s ocean freight wants. But this initiative exhibits that we are able to act now and implement options that obtain important outcomes through the watch for long-term technological options.

We don’t view this initiative as a aggressive benefit. Quite the opposite, we need to spark different automotive makers into motion as nicely, to extend demand for carbon environment friendly ocean transports and to ascertain renewable fuels as a mid-term resolution that works. All of us have a duty to behave.

—Javier Varela, Chief Working Officer and Deputy CEO

Volvo Automobiles has been engaged on this initiative along with its logistics companions Maersk, Kuehne+Nagel and DB Schenker. These logistics service suppliers have from 1 June 2023 switched to renewable gas for equal power wanted for all container transports accomplished for Volvo Automobiles.

When renewable gas is just not out there on a particular cargo, the renewable gas allocation is as an alternative utilized by the logistics accomplice for one more buyer’s route elsewhere, so the general lower in fossil gas use is stored on par with precise use in container vessels. The methodology, referred to as mass-balancing, is third-party audited repeatedly. The renewable gas itself is licensed and never produced in competitors with meals crops. It’s subsequently sustainable in accordance with the EU Renewable Vitality Directive.