A report from global nonprofit business network BSR unit Clean Cargo Working Group has revealed that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from ships operated by 22 of the world’s major ocean container carrier lines witnessed a drop last year.

The Trade Lane CO2 Emissions Factors report includes data from over 3,200 ships operated by the 22 ocean container carrier lines.

According to the report, the average CO2 emissions per container per kilometre from the 22 lines, which represent 85% of the world’s containerised shipping, fell by 1% from 2016 to last year.

Since 2009, emissions per container move have also reported a reduction of 37.1%.

However, additional innovation and partnerships across the value chain is required to achieve ambitious global climate goals set by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), said the report.

“Emissions per container move have also reported a reduction of 37.1%.”

BSR manager Nate Springer said: “The progress on climate and air quality we are seeing in container shipping – one of the highest emitting industries – is absolutely critical for achieving global environmental goals.

“We need more innovation in low-emission technology, as well as continued collaboration, to meet the ambitious goal of halving CO2 emissions from shipping by 2050, recently announced by the International Maritime Organization.”

A few years back, Clean Cargo created a standardised methodology and reporting system, which has been adopted by the global container shipping industry to submit operational data from their entire fleet of vessels to BSR annually for trade lane emission factors aggregation.

The system has resulted in environmental performance scorecards for each carrier.