Swedish shipping company Stena Line released its yearly overview for 2017, revealing a 15% decrease in its sulphur emissions, reduced plastic onboard and a decreased number of accidents among the seagoing staff, in line with its sustainability strategy initiated in 2016.
Stena Line’s sustainability strategy is based on the UN sustainable development goals which have four main focus areas: Clean Energy, Responsible Consumption, Life below Water, and Health & Wellbeing.
Highlights 2017 Clean Energy Responsible Consumption Life Below Water Health & Wellbeing
To minimize ocean plastics, the company aims to gradually phase out carrier bags and disposables made of traditional plastic onboard all ships. During the year, all regular plastic bags in the shops were replaced to renewable bio-plastic – at the same time the number of bags was reduced by 15% from 958,000 to 818,000. In addition, 1.3 million disposable coffee cups on board were replaced by a bio-degradable alternative.
To tackle emissions, the company paved the way for the use of methanol as a marine fuel, with the conversion of Stena Germanica in 2017, which became the first ship in the world converted to be able to run on both methanol and diesel. She also did her first full crossing from Gothenburg to Kiel using methanol. Methanol is almost completely free from sulphur and particles – and has 60% lower NOx emissions than traditional fuel. It can also be produced from renewable sources.
To further educe emissions, Stena Line will commence a three-step project in spring 2018 when a 1,000 kWh battery pack will be installed onboard the RoPax ‘Stena Jutlandica’. Electricity will be used to manoeuvre the ferry in port. In the next steps, battery power will be installed on the main engine propellers with the final target to run on electricity for approximately 50 nm, corresponding to the distance between Gothenburg and Frederikshavn.
Explore more herebelow:
