Maersk and Nike Debut Bio-Fueled Container Vessel at Port of Los Angeles
A.P. Moller-Maersk and one of its top brand partners unveiled one of the world’s first green methanol-powered vessels at a Port of Los Angeles naming ceremony on Tuesday.
The Alette Maersk, so named for shipping magnate A.P. Moller’s great-granddaughter, arrived at the SoCal port this week following its two-week maiden voyage across the Pacific.
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“Today, we are gathered here with this impressive vessel besides us in the water,” Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc said at the christening of the 1,150-foot-long ship, which is capable of hauling 16,592 TEUs across the open ocean. “This vessel sailed all the way from Xiamen powered by green methanol, making it the first that can run on green methanol instead of traditional fuel here in the United States.”
According to the Danish shipping giant, the dual-fuel system is capable of saving up to 280 tons of CO2 per day compared to vessels running solely on “bunker”—or fossil—fuels. “We take great pride in our role as a first mover in our industry, and this vessel stands both as a bigger hope for a sustainable future, but also as a masterpiece of modern engineering and design,” Clerc added.
As it stands, nearly 3 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are generated by ocean transport. While it’s widely seen as the most environmentally conscious mode of ferrying cargo from Point A to Point B, 90 percent of global trade is facilitated via container vessels, meaning that the industry’s carbon footprint is substantial.
According to Clerc, Maersk has set the ambitious target of transporting at least 25 percent of all ocean cargo on vessels that use low-emission fuels by 2030, with an ultimate goal of zeroing out emissions entirely by 2040.
“Gathering all of us here today not only celebrates this occasion, but also underscores the unity of vision that is bringing us here today; the consequences of climate change are not distant warnings,” the executive said. “They are present reality demanding urgent attention and immediate action across industries and close partnership between companies, governments and regulators.”
One such company is Nike, a 25-year Maersk client that Clerc credited for its bullishness in remediating the impacts of its supply chain. The Oregon-headquartered athletic wear titan was a founding member of the BSR (Business for Social Responsibility) Clean Cargo Working Group (CCWG), providing input to inform the creation of standardized tools for shippers and cargo carriers to measure and report on environmental impact. It also joined Maersk’s EcoDelivery biofuel program when it was launched in 2019, which Clerc said has resulted in the reduction of CO2 emissions by thousands of tons annually.
Venkatesh Alagirisamy, the brand’s chief supply chain officer, underscored the sentiment that collaboration across the value chain is essential. In light of its mission to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, Nike and Maersk have jointly invested in the advancement of ocean biofuels, along with taking on energy usage and waste in co-operated facilities, he said.
“It takes the power of the community, with key partnerships across both public and private sectors, to come together with a shared vision and a purpose to have impact at scale for many years to come,” he said. “That certainly is our motivation for being here today.”
Olympic snowboarder and Nike athlete Chloe Kim, who was anointed the vessel’s godmother, spoke to the fact that climate change, largely driven by GHG emissions, has imperiled her sport.
“Snowpack in the Western U.S. has decreased by 30 percent in the last century; this means snow seasons are growing shorter and less reliable, and there are fewer snow days, but bigger snowstorms,” she said. “The change in snowfall not only affects winter sports, but it threatens our ability to participate in sport and the future of sport overall.”
“This is why collaboration and the partnerships like this one today are key, and why it was important for me to attend,” she added. “A problem this large and complex cannot be solved alone. It’s important for each of us to take responsibility and raise our collective voice to strengthen our commitment to climate action.”
The Alette is Maersk’s fifth green-methanol-enabled container vessel, meaning that it can be run on an “end-to-end, low-emission fuel” certified by the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC), according to Saba Takidar, Maersk’s sustainability and decarbonization lead. Agricultural waste and other biomass are used as feedstock for the bio-methanol, and its processing is powered by renewable energy. By contrast, “gray” methanol, the market standard, is produced using natural gas or coal.
Takidar indicated that the primary limitation to scaling the use of biofuels like green methanol is availability. “There’s not enough in the world for our 700-plus ships,” she said. That’s why the Alette will have to rely in part on bunker fuels for its trip back across the Pacific, which would require about 2,000 tons of green methanol to complete.
Maersk is also keeping a close eye on the development of ammonia-based fuels, though they are still largely in the “exploratory stage” and are unlikely to become commercially viable in the near-term, the sustainability lead believes. By contrast, green methanol, while a limited resource for now, is heralded as a drop-in solution that requires little investment or retrofitting to use.
The Alette has several other features that set it apart aside from its fuel intake. For one, the crew accommodations are positioned at the bow of the vessel instead of the stern, allowing for increased container capacity and greater efficiency during port operations. Twenty more similar vessels are on order, Maersk said.
Aboard the vessel, Captain Jens-Christian Schou said piloting the Alette’s first sailing from Asia to U.S. shores was a point of pride. He believes in the mission to transition to green ethanol and other bio-based fuels, citing the “tremendous effort” that Maersk has put into the transition. Hailing from Romania, the Philippines, India, Ukraine, Denmark and Holland, the boat’s 22-person crew have also bought into the initiative, having applied for the very limited opportunity to staff the sustainable voyage.
“We’re very happy and proud, of course, as a team, to have taken a leadership position… but we are also especially proud for the strong followership that there is across the industry to actually deal with this,” Clerc told reporters after the ceremony, referring to the industry’s green energy evolution.
But the CEO warned that efforts to accelerate the shift to biofuels could run off course without the support of government and regulators.
“Here, you have actually a sector that has leaned in ahead of regulation but that is now asking for regulatory help, because the difference in cost between doing the right thing is so big that, as it is today, it is not economically viable,” he said.
“We’ve made significant investment. We’ve proven that from an engineering perspective, we can decarbonize, we can actually put this segment and the whole global supply chain on a sustainable footing,” he added. “But the market being what it is and the economics being what they are, to do that without some type of incentives, without some type of carbon practices—it’s going to be very difficult for consumers and customers alike to actually do the right choice, which I think risks jeopardizing the whole transition.”
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