At the Marine Energy Transition Forum in Antwerp this week, Stolt Tankers’ sustainability expert outlined how the business’s carbon-insetting programme is helping to reduce Scope 1 emissions and supporting its customers to lower emissions within their own supply chains.
Giorgio Guadagna, Stolt Tankers’ Business Partner – Sustainability and Decarbonisation, explained that the programme is supporting participants to achieve their respective sustainability goals. For Stolt Tankers, this includes realising its ambitions to reduce its carbon intensity by 50% (relative to 2008) and operate at least one carbon-neutral ship by 2030, and to be fully carbon neutral by 2050.
The programme is specifically looking at FAME-based (fatty acid methyl ester) biodiesel, which is best suited to the engines on Stolt Tankers’ ships. The fuel must also be 'second generation' meaning it is produced from waste, and ISCC certified to ensure its sustainability credentials.
To date, Stolt Tankers has used 3,000 tonnes of this biofuel on a small number of ships completing voyages between Europe and the US. And there are plans to use it on more voyages before the end of this year and in early 2024.
Multiple independent third parties are being used to verify the resulting reductions in CO2 and certify shipments as carbon neutral.
And while biofuels are not widely seen as a long-term solution – not least because limited feedstocks are likely to create a bottleneck in their production – they are certainly part of the solution and are providing Stolt Tankers with an invaluable training ground for the future.