ONE – Now is the major carbon-efficient carrier, as ‘shipping gets greener’

Xeneta, an ocean and air freight rate analytics platform, has named Ocean Network Express as the most carbon-efficient carrier. The emissions rate has fallen to 23.3% since 2018 on the Far East to the US east coast trade lanes even though the onset of over tonnage and a crucial slippage in the fill factor.

The short-term analysis shows more drastic changes since the onset of the unique market dynamics in 2022. For example, CEI scores, which measure efficiency based on CO2 equivalent per tonne-mile, decreased significantly between Q2 22 and Q3 23 on the North Europe-to-South America east coast trade, showing a near-30% reduction of 31.6 points. Similarly, the US east coast-Far East trade also saw a decrease of 21.8 points, which accounts for just over 20%.

Emily Stausboll, an analyst at Xeneta said that even though there were capacity issues for carriers, they could have huge emissions benefits on the crucial trade lanes. Further, she stated that the market is struggling with overcapacity but if looked at from the rate perspective there has been a chain reaction that had a positive impact on CEI scores. She also mentioned that there is an increase in ship efficiency that can bring out favourable results and praised the induction of larger and slower ships and vessels to trade as an emission reduction strategy but can have an adverse environmental impact if not handled properly.

In shipping, it is essential that ships run full load, half empty ships are not environmentally efficient. However, the carriers try to remove capacity from some of the major trade routes to fix freight rates and this can lead to chain reaction across the shipping network globally.

According to the IMO’s model, the emissions are measured on a per-ship basis. Slow steaming and increased vessel size can bring in good results when compared to older and smaller/faster vessels. However, this can be avoided by removing old vessels from operations which is yet to be addressed, but some signs of its beginning are emerging.