In the 3rd quarter of 2023, Evergreen emerged as the most environmentally friendly shipping company on the Northern Europe – US East Coast trade route, according to Xeneta’s latest report, which updated the values of its sustainability index, the Carbon Emission Index (CEI), compiled by analyzing the major shipping companies and 13 of the most important trade routes.
The Taiwan-based carrier is the top performer, with a CEI that registered 53.7 points. The big carrier’s CEI is 32.6% lower than the average of the other companies.
Although Evergreen’s fleet was 6.5% smaller quarter-on-quarter in Q3, with the average vessel size on this trade route reduced to 12,772 TEUs, its fleet size average was up by 34.9%.
The carrier deployed significantly higher capacity than average on the Far East – Northern Europe trade lane. In spite of this, it managed to outperform its competitors in terms of CO2 emission reduction during transport operations.Why?
First of all, Xeneta points out that the shipping company’s vessels are not only larger but also newer compared to other shipping companies. The ships it uses on the trade route are, on average, 4.4 years old. This is considerably less than the 13.7-year-old average. Their vessels, being more modern, pollute less.
Another benchmark for evaluating liner performance is sailing speed, which dropped to 14.4 knots overall during the third quarter. During the year, companies often resorted to slow-steaming to try to absorb excess capacity, reducing their overall cruising speed to 14.9 knots.
The reduction in shipping speed contributed to a drop in the CEI index for Northern Europe to the US East Coast from 90.3 in the second quarter of this year to 83.2 in the third quarter.
Translation by Giles Foster
