Volvo will be using these renewable fuels for its ocean freights
Every year tens of thousands of containers of production material destined for Volvo Cars factories are carried across the world’s oceans on container ships. From now on, most of these seafaring journeys are made with renewable fuel instead of traditional fossil fuel in line with its sustainability goals
As the first global car maker to announce such a switch, Volvo will achieve an immediate reduction in fossil CO2 emissions from intercontinental ocean freight by 55,000 tonnes over a year. Thanks to renewable fuel, CO2 emissions are reduced by at least 84 percent. This is equivalent to the CO2 emissions of a full truck driving around the equator about 1,200 times.
Moreover, the fuel used is Fatty Acid Methyl Esters (FAME) and is based on renewable and sustainable sources, mainly waste cooking oil. No feedstock related to palm oil or palm oil production is used so it is sustainable through and through.
Volvo Cars will use renewable fuel for inbound ocean container transports of production material destined for manufacturing plants based in Europe and the Americas, as well as all spare parts distribution made globally by ocean container transports.
Javier Varela, Volvo Cars Chief Operating Officer and Deputy CEO also said, “Renewable fuel is not the end game for removing CO2 from the world’s ocean freight needs. Yet this initiative shows that we can act now and implement solutions that achieve significant results during the wait for long-term technological alternatives.”
Volvo Cars has also been working on this initiative together with our logistics partners Maersk,Kuehne+Nagel and DB Schenker. These logistics service providers have from 1 June 2023 switched to renewable fuel for equivalent energy needed for all container transports done for Volvo Cars.
On top of that, when renewable fuel is not available on a specific shipment, renewable fuel allocation is instead used by the logistics partner for another customer’s route elsewhere, so the overall cut in fossil fuel use is kept on par with actual use in container vessels.
The methodology, called mass-balancing, is third-party audited regularly. The renewable fuel itself is certified and not produced in competition with food crops. It is therefore sustainable in accordance with the EU Renewable Energy Directive.
Volvo Cars’ aims to reduce their lifecycle carbon footprint per car by 40 percent between 2018 and 2025, which requires a 25 percent reduction in operational emissions, including logistics. It also aims for climate-neutral manufacturing by 2025. Both are important milestones towards Volvo Cars’ climate neutral ambitions.
