Evergreen Line wins the greenports award 2019 for eco-friendly fleet
This year, the greenports award 2020 for the shipping company with the “Most eco-friendly fleet” goes to the Evergreen Line. In 2019, the Evergreen vessels “Ever Lucky” and “Ever Lifting” called at the ports of Bremen a total of 10 times. The winners were calculated on the basis of the Environmental Ship Index (ESI) scores for the year 2019. With an average ESI score of 53.8 points for the overall fleet, the Evergreen vessels performed very well in terms of fleet rating. Robert Howe, Managing Director of bremenports, presented the award to representatives of the winning shipping company.
This year’s award for the “Most eco-friendly vessel” went to the “Olympic Orion”, which called at the ports of Bremen 12 times in all.
With a score of 71.1, the vessel operated by the Olympic Subsea ASA shipping company achieved the highest score since the awards were first presented back in 2013. The “Olympic Orion” is a multipurpose offshore vessel with a length of 98.3 metres, diesel-electric propulsion and low fuel consumption. The Norwegian shipping company uses this vessel to perform all kinds of work below sea level and in the field of renewable energy. This could be, for instance, laying or repairing underwater cables or the maintenance of offshore wind plant.
The shipping company attaches great importance to environmental and energy management and to using the best available technology on its vessels. This year, 2nd place went to the feeder container vessel “Freya” operated by the Trans-Baltica shipping company, which achieved an average ESI score of 56.1 points.
This is the seventh time that bremenports has presented its “greenports awards”. In addition to the public award ceremony, bremenports also symbolically offsets the carbon emissions caused by the winning vessel during one call at the ports of Bremen. The climate protection payment is used to support “DER KLIMAFONDS”, which promotes measures aimed at reducing carbon emissions in non-profit social and cultural institutions.
The award winners were decided on the basis of their scores in the Environmental Ship Index (ESI) in 2019. The ESI was developed by a working group made up of the major North-West European Ports on behalf of the World Port Climate Initiative to enable comparison and assessments of ship-generated emissions. The fundamental principle is to reward vessels whose emissions outperform the legal requirements (IMO Standard). The ESI score is a figure between 0 and 100, where 0 points are awarded to a vessel which satisfies the legal requirements and 100 points go to a vessel which emits no sulphur oxides or nitrogen oxides and which publishes an energy efficient report.
The latest statistics show that the number of vessels worldwide in the ESI database is continually rising. By 1 April 2020, 8238 seagoing vessels with an average ESI score of 29.15 had been registered. The database meanwhile includes 57 ports which offer discounts to clean vessels. The ports of Bremen rolled out their bonus programme for eco-friendly shipping in 2012. The programme is reviewed every year and adapted if necessary. Eco-friendly vessels receive a discount on the port charges. The share of vessels with an ESI score calling at Bremen and Bremerhaven is meanwhile almost four times higher than it was in 2012. While only 11% of all the ships calling at the ports of Bremen had an ESI score in 2012, the figure had risen to 43% by 2019.
