Introduction
Sustainable and efficient transport has long been an important item on the agenda of the Spliethoff Group. Sustainability is becoming an increasingly dominant part of the discussion publicly, politically and with our customers. We embrace this, as we believe a sustainable value chain can only be achieved by collaboration between all the stakeholders. With this first Sustainability Report of the Spliethoff Group we aim to ‘fuel’ the discussion and promote collaboration to achieve this common objective. We share our recent experiences and a diverse range of sustainability projects.
The global pandemic turned 2020 into an extremely challenging year for everyone around the world. However, with the start of the vaccination programmes there is some light at the end of the tunnel and we hope we can see a return to ‘normality’ soon, leaving us all to focus on our core activities again. As Spliethoff Group we aim to meet the goals defined by the IMO and reduce our CO2 emissions by 50% in 2050. Our path to achieve this is based on three pillars: operational performance, efficient ship design and innovative systems. With a focus on optimising speed against energy used we can significantly improve the emissions per tonne-mile. With the application of fresh insights in propulsion and hull optimisation, new designs will be more energy efficient. We closely follow developments in energy savings related to vessel equipment and systems and apply them wherever possible. But there remains the outstanding question about the fuel of the future. Which fuel will bring significant gains and reduce the environmental impact from well to tank to wake? We support these developments, follow them closely, and are keeping our options open regarding these fuels of the future. It is worth noting that we are very dependent on these developments when it comes to setting our targets concerning environmental impact reduction. In the next edition of our Sustainability Report we will present our plans in more detail but for the moment we highlight some of our projects from the last decade. Already in 1999 we started using advanced weather routing software to optimise the efficiency of our fleet and to increase the safety for the crew on board. These efficiency improvements were a great starting point in reducing our footprint and over the years the focus has been on deploying our fleet as efficiently as possible. Once the Internet of Things technology and increased connectivity became available for vessels we could take this to the next level. To manage our sustainability efforts, the ISO 14001 standard was implemented for our fleet and office. We already achieved this certification in 2016. The latest development has been a sustainable cooperation with one of our clients whereby we are building LNG-powered coaster vessels. Using an alternative fuel and looking at optimising the vessels’ size has reduced their CO2 emissions by more than 50% and SOx and NOx emissions even more dramatically. These collaborations hold the key to improving sustainability in shipping in our view. Apart from the initiatives mentioned, we have trialled and applied many different innovative technologies:
- Advanced Weather Routing (1999): Installed specialised weather routing software on board the fleet.
- Scrubbers (2012): Start of the installation of scrubbers (EGCS) on our fleet, reducing SOx, PM and CO2 , compared to using low sulphur fuel oils.
- Flettner Rotor (2014): Wind-assisted propulsion to improve the vessel’s efficiency and reduce emissions (installed on mv Bore Estraden).
- Efficiency Monitoring System (2014): IoT technology was applied to monitor and optimise the efficiency of our fleet with data-driven decision making.
- ISO 14001 (2016): Environmental Management Plan – Certification received for the Spliethoff fleet and main office. Managing emissions, pollution and waste.
- Robot Hull Cleaning (2017): Sustainable hull cleaning with the Fleetcleaner robot. Washwater is filtered to eliminate the risk of invasive species and reducing the hull resistance in order to reduce emissions.
- Trial Econowind sails (2019): Trial with collapsible, containerised Ventifoil sails for wind-assisted propulsion on a Wijnne Barends coaster vessel.
- Digital Twin (2019): Development of digital twins with machine learning to improve performance assessments and to further optimise performance.
- LNG-powered vessels (2020): Start of construction of seven LNG-powered shortsea vessels.
The Spliethoff Group will continue to improve its sustainability. We endeavour to achieve the greenhouse gas reduction target set by the IMO, and hope we can achieve even more. Decarbonising the shipping industry will be a huge challenge and will require a large investment from all stakeholders. This investment may not lead to any short-term monetary gains but will pay off in a more sustainable planet for the centuries to come. Looking a century ahead sounds far away, but perhaps it is not impossible for us, since 2021 is the year in which we celebrate our centenary! We very much look forward to working together and challenging each other in regards to sustainability in the years to come. We kindly invite you to contact us via sustainability@spliethoff.com in case you have any questions, ideas or remarks.