Decarbonization of Transport: Status Quo and Way Forward
Between The S-Curves
Freight-transport-related CO2 emissions are expected to double by 2050, as demand is anticipated to triple in this period: the sector therefore plays a vital role in preventing global average temperature from rising further. Today, it sits between two “S-curves”, as conventional engines have been optimized to a maximum and new alternatives still need to be scaled up.
Why Focus On Transportation?
The world economy needs international trade, but benefits of this trade come at a high cost. Transporting goods around the globe adds to greenhouse gas emissions which, in turn, accelerates climate change. We can actually measure this and predict likely outcomes. For example, these days international transportation is contributing approximately 14% of all carbon emissions; should business simply continue as usual, this figure will double by 2050 as demand for freight shipping is anticipated to grow between now and then.
This illustrates an important point. All modes of transportation, especially the most carbon-intensive – air freight – can substantially influence the global average temperature. As the world seeks to minimize the temperature rise, the transportation and logistics industry is strengthening its contributions to sustainability.
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The Path Towards Zero Emission: Burn Less, or Burn Clean
To decarbonize any given transport mode, there are two main levers: to burn less or to burn clean. Burning less means using less fuel for the same transport work, while burning clean involves increasing the share of clean, carbon-neutral transport movements in the network.
In Air Freight, better aircraft design along with operational and network efficiency gains helped to improve the carbon efficiency significantly. The same is true for marine shipping, where year-on-year efficiency improvements of 5-10% were common.
The efficiency gains are now slowing down significantly. At the same time, sustainable fuels and new technologies are increasingly available, especially in Road Freight. It is now technically possible to largely decarbonize transport by using sustainable fuels, eMobility and fuel cells. However, these technologies are still only available at a small scale and higher cost.
Listen to the Expert: Watch Kathrin Brost, Global Head of the GoGreen Program at DHL Global Forwarding, Present How Shippers Burn Less and How They Can Burn Clean, Too
Burn Less, The First S-Curve
While it is difficult to improve the efficiency of conventional aircrafts or vessels further, transport chains can still be further decarbonized by a couple of levers. Modal shifts and intermodal solutions are very impactful levers to reduce the carbon footprint of a shipment. Routing optimization, carrier selection and consolidation are also helping to reduce emissions.
Consolidating to Strengthen the Carbon Reduction Potential: FCL vs. LCL
Consolidation is a strong good example CO2 emission reduction. By sharing container space you are also sharing its carbon footprint… sharing is caring!
Modal Shift: Comparing Transport Modes
Modal shifts are the most straight-forward lever to reduce emissions. AFR transport is the most carbon-intense way of transport. Hence, whenever airfreight can be replaced by road, rail or ocean freight alternatives, this can save up to 90% CO2. And in most cases, this will also help to save money.
Changing to a different transport also bears its challenges. Naturally, this requires a change in the transport planning, and will in most cases lead to longer transit times. This is why multimodal solutions can also be a good option – especially when there are transit time restrictions.
Burn Clean, The Second S-Curve
To abate global warming, the share of clean, carbon-neutral transport movements needs to be increased – and it needs to be increased fast. The heavy-duty transport sector is considered to be “hard-to-abate”, not so much due to a lack of technological solutions, but rather because they carry a higher abatement cost in comparison to the current, higher-carbon technologies. However, there are good news: full decarbonization of transport is possible.
Especially in Road Freight, clean transport solutions are increasingly available. eMobility for light-duty vehicles and shorter distance transport is being established in many countries – including the necessary electric recharging infrastructure. Sustainable fuel is also becoming increasingly available in more locations. Replacing assets and changing aircraft and vessel fleets to clean technology solutions is more complex and will take more time: this is why sustainable fuels and in particular “drop-in fuels”, which require no or little change in engine technologies, are going to play a key role in the next 10 years.
An effective way to largely decarbonize transportation is to use carbon insetting solutions. Insetting means avoiding, reducing, or removing emissions within the company’s own value chain. That’s why many organizations are now using sustainable fuels in their own transportation activities and making sure to renew their own fleets with environmentally friendly aircraft, sea vessels, and vehicles.
Sustainable Fuels: The Status Quo
Biofuels have many strengths – the main one being that they are readily available. Biofuels have a downside: feedstock availability is limited, and it is important that only sustainable biofuels that do not cause any change in land usage are burned.
Commercial-scale production is technically feasible. Due to high production costs, it is currently predominately available in countries where financial incentives are in place.
eFuels: The Status Quo
eFuels are seen to be a promising long-term solution. E-fuels are synthetic fuels that can be produced from water and carbon dioxide (CO2) using electricity. Unlike biofuels, eFuels are not limited by the available feedstock.
One of e-fuels’ strengths is that they can be seamlessly integrated into existing vehicles and infrastructure. In chemical terms, e-fuels have the same properties as liquid and gaseous fossil fuels. But they are produced synthetically
This process however requires significant amount of energy. E-fuels are sustainable if the power used comes solely from renewable sources and the CO2 is either removed from the atmosphere or produced from biomass. In the next decade, power-to-liquids production facilities and CO2 capturing facilities need to be build and scaled up.
Where We Are Now: The Steep Part of The Second S-Curve
The roadmap to zero emissions is clear:
- Short-term, we will focus on burning less and scaling up sustainable fuel usage.
- After 2030, clean technologies and eFuels will become increasingly available and will pave the way to a zero emission logistics.
Today, we are at the “steep part of the second S-curve”. To turn the fuels of the future into the fuels of today, we need to increase the demand for sustainable fuels so that cost will come done. We also need mechanisms to simplify the use of sustainable fuels like insetting and “book and claim” solutions . Most importantly, we need to team up and collaborate across the industry and across sectors.
DHL Global Forwarding has been developing these customer-centric sustainable fuel solutions for several years. And it was in January 2021 we became the first logistics service provider to offer truly climate-neutral ocean freight shipments without additional costs through our Less-than-Container Load (LCL) GoGreen Plus. Since then, we expanded our offerings by launching Full-Container Load (FCL) GoGreen Plus in June 2021 and Air Freight GoGreen Plus in February 2022. Which means today our customers can opt for truly carbon-neutral air and ocean freight shipping with DHL Global Forwarding.
For an excellent summary of these sustainability solutions, watch our videos on our air solutions and our ocean solutions:
GoGreen Plus for Air Freight
Use certified, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) with DHL, and reduce 100% of the Tank-to-Wake and up to 85% Well-to-Wake carbon emissions – one liter of SAF for one liter of fossil jet-fuel!
GoGreen Plus for Ocean Freight
Like its Air Freight counterpart, GoGreen Plus for Ocean Freight enables the replacement of Heavy Fuel Oils (HFO) by biofuels - one liter of SMF for one liter of heavy fuel oil! This reduces emissions in ocean freight shipping. This too reduces 100% of the Tank-to-Wake and up to 85% Wheel-to-Wake carbon emissions.
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We built this tool to help you get a sense of your progress toward decarbonization targets. Answer 10 quick questions and we will send you an email indicating how advanced your company is when it comes to the decarbonization of Air Freight or Ocean Freight transport operations.