Environmental effects of Maersk Line’s global container shipping operation

ABSTRACT

This article investigates emissions from a container ship fleet’s worldwide operation regarding spatial distribution and negative externality on regional ports. It is the first to study the adverse effects of a mega operator’s transport activities. A bottom-up model is developed to compute emissions using ships’ voyage data and applied in the service network of Maersk Line, the world’s biggest carrier. The fleet of 653 units (3.52 m TEUs) serves a global network with a weekly travelling distance of 1,043,845 miles. Such large-scale activities result in weekly emissions of 683,428 tonnes of CO₂ and other pollutants, equivalent to an external cost of €202.3 m. Emissions are primarily released on the focal East-West shipping network to connect East Asia, Europe, and North America. The fleet serves 353 ports in all continents, but focuses mainly on a few strategic spots, leading to most in-port emissions in East Asia, Europe, and the Mediterranean Sea.

KEYWORDS:

• Container shipping
• Maersk Line
• CO₂ emission
• external cost
• shipping network
• transport geography

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nguyen Khoi Tran

Dr. Nguyen Khoi Tran has joined EM-Normandie Business School (Le Havre, France) since February 2019. Prior to this, he was a Research Fellow in Maritime Institute, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; Project Assistant in University of Bremen and Institute of Shipping Economics and Logistics, Germany; and Lecturer in Transport Economics in Ho Chi Minh City University of Transport, Vietnam. His research interests lie at the intersection of transport logistics (especially in container shipping), mathematics and computer science and microeconomics. His main directions consist of sustainability in supply chains, transport economics and logistics, large-scale network analysis, network optimization, and transport emissions.

Thi Anh Tam Tran

Dr. Thi Anh Tam Tran received her Master degree in Port Management at World Maritime University (Malmo, Sweden) in 2011, and PhD degree in Maritime Logistics at Kobe University (Japan) in 2017. She has worked as a lecturer from 2009 to 2019 at University of Transport Ho Chi Minh City, from 2019 until current at University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City. Her research interests are Asian port management, container shipping, port policy management, and shipper’s behavior studies.