An initiative organized by the Aspen Institute helped Amazon, Ikea, Unilever, Michelin and Patagoniz to pledge that they won’t use shipping companies which allow emissions by 2040. Shipping the world’s products around produce about 3 percent of human emissions each year, an amount similar to what Germany’s annual emissions are, as the sixth largest emitter in the world.
In signing the pledge, the companies hoped to signal their determination to decarbonize this part of their supply chains and inspire “a surge in investment by ocean freight carriers and producers of zero-carbon shipping fuels,” their announcement read. They also urged government officials to “to set ambitious marine fuel goals, implement regulations and market-based measures to encourage the rapid development of new fuels and technology, and to allow zero-carbon shipping fuels to “become competitive with fossil fuels as soon as possible.”
Read more in The Washington Post, Amazon, Ikea and other big companies commit to zero-emission shipping by 2040, by Hamza Shaban, published October 19, 2021