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40-ft ambassador displays Maersk’s environmental credentials

Media Release
21 February, 2011

40-foot ambassador puts Maersk’s environmental credentials on display

A converted shipping container parked in Auckland’s Queen Elizabeth Square has been giving passersby an insight into the environmental effects of global shipping, and what the world’s largest container line is doing to minimise those effects.

Developed for the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change conference, the Maersk Line Climate Box’s interactive displays explain how a product’s carbon footprint is calculated, the relative greenhouse gas emissions of different modes of transport, and how improvements in route planning and ship design can boost eco-efficiency.

Maersk Line’s New Zealand Trade & Marketing Manager, Dave Gulik, said improved eco-efficiency is central to the company’s business strategy, and an issue of particular importance to its New Zealand customers.
“New Zealand exporters are under increasing pressure from their customers to demonstrate environmental best practice across their whole supply chain and, as the company most responsible for connecting New Zealanders with markets and suppliers around the world, that makes it a big deal for Maersk,” he said.

Mr Gulik said the use by European producer groups of so-called food miles to attack goods imported from countries including New Zealand demonstrated the importance of accurately measuring a product’s whole carbon lifecycle, and validated Maersk’s decision to have its fleet’s CO2 emissions independently verified – the first line to do so.

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Auckland City Councillor Mike Lee, who represents the Waitemata and Hauraki Gulf ward and is a director of Auckland Transport, said while shipping was already far and away the most environmentally efficient form of transport, that did not mean the industry could ignore concerns about its contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.

“It’s something the Port has worked very hard to address over the past few years through, for example, investing in energy-efficient plant and lighting, waste reduction and recycling initiatives, and developing more efficient ways to handle and move cargo,” said Councillor Lee.

Councillor Lee said Ports of Auckland last year handled goods equivalent to 13 percent of New Zealand’s total GDP, twice as much as any other New Zealand port, and was strongly committed to environmental best practice.

“Responsible environmental management is a high priority for the Port, as it is for the Auckland Council, so we welcome the work Maersk is doing to reduce its contribution to the carbon footprint of producers and consumers in our region and around the country.”

Ends

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