Short Sea Shipping’s Green Label at Risk

Abstract

Shifting cargo from land‐based modes to maritime transport has been a prioritized policy in many policy papers to make transport more environmental friendly. Traditional calculations of emissions per transport capacity unit have supported this. However, maritime transport may stand to loose its good environmental reputation in comparison to road transport due to (1) the sluggish processes in maritime environmental policies and the low ambition level of current regulations, (2) the much higher focus on improving the environmental efficiency of the road haulage industry, (3) the much longer economic life of vessels compared to trucks, and (4) focus on faster vessels that increase the average fuel consumption of the sea transport alternative. Through a realistic case study, the energy efficiency and emissions of alternative multimodal transport chains is presented to illustrate these points.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Edvard Thonstad Sandvik for his help explaining the framework for calculations of environmental impacts of multimodal chains presented in his study from 2005 (Sandvik, 2005). The author appreciates comments received on this paper from three anonymous referees, and is also very grateful for the valuable comments on an early draft given by associate professor Nigel Halpern. All remaining errors are the author’s alone.

Notes

1. Currently the Baltic Sea and the North Sea are SECA areas.

2. Vessel data applied for the calculations are based on the following vessels: Color Line’s Superspeed 1 (Kristiansand–Hirtshals), Color Line’s Color Magic (Oslo–Kiel), P&O Ferries’ Norbank (Kristiansund–Rosyth and Rosyth–Zeebrügge) and P&O Ferries’ Pride of Dover (Dover–Calais).

3. Only one driver is assumed on HGV vehicles, rest time is calculated according to current regulations.