On April 23, NYK became a member of the Smart Freight Centre (“SFC”), an international non-profit organization that aims to reduce greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions in the logistics sector. The Global Ro-Ro Community, which aims to standardize the calculation of GHG emissions from Ro-Ro vessels* such as car carriers, was established with SFC, Wallenius Wilhelmsen, and ClassNK. The first meeting was held in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on the same day and attended by 10 shipping companies and classification societies from around the world.

In recent years, various companies have become increasingly interested in carbon emissions throughout the life cycles of their products and services (carbon footprint) and understanding GHG emissions related to “transportation” has become an important issue for these companies. The Global Ro-Ro Community aims to standardize GHG emission calculation methods for marine transportation, which currently differ from company to company, to ensure an accurate and fair understanding of carbon emissions.

Based in Amsterdam, SFC is working to promote global warming countermeasures by visualizing the impact of increased GHG emissions, making proposals for emission reductions, and establishing guidelines for decarbonization in the logistics sector. SFC also aims to reduce GHG emissions from global freight transportation by 1 billion tons by 2030 and achieve zero GHG emissions by 2050, thereby limiting the increase in global average temperature to 1.5°C or less. This is in line with the future vision that we are aiming for in the NYK Group Decarbonization Story that we released last year.

Going forward, through fair and transparent discussions with Global Ro-Ro Community members, we will work to develop international accounting guidance for GHG emissions.

For more information, please see the SFC press release.　-Smart Freight Centre

*Ro-Ro vessels
Cargo vessels that cars, trucks, trailers, construction machineries and agricultural machineries can drive themselves directly on board.