Giant Shipper Bets Big On Ending Its Carbon Emissions. Will It Pay Off?

Maersk — the world’s largest container shipping company — has an astonishing goal. By 2050, the company vows to send goods — everything from electronics to soybeans to sneakers — around the world with zero carbon emissions.

The environmental logic behind such a promise is straightforward: Shipping contributes substantially to global climate change.

But the business case is not as obvious.

The goal, announced late last year, will cost Maersk billions to develop new technologies. Meanwhile, it will be competing in a crowded, competitive market against rivals who aren’t bearing that burden. And there’s no guaranteed financial payoff if the engineers’ work succeeds.

So why do it?

The question is not unique to Maersk, or the shipping sector. A growing number of businesses are paying serious attention to the risks of climate change. But, at the same time, they face shareholders who expect returns.

According to both Maersk and outside analysts, this ambitious promise hinges on the answer to three questions:

• Will consumers pay more to cut their carbon footprint?
• Will new technology eventually be cheaper than oil?
• Will the world actually decide to tackle climate change, and impose regulations with teeth?

A lot on the line

Maersk operates 750 vessels, with one calling at a port somewhere around the world every 15 minutes. Some of the ships are as long as the Empire State Building is tall.

The Danish company has been shipping goods around the world since the age of steamships. Now it wants to usher in a new era, with zero carbon transport.

It’s easy to make a promise decades in the future, but by all accounts, Maersk is serious about its commitment. The company already has cut emissions substantially, at the cost of $1 billion so far. And it has an intermediate goal to cut emissions by 60% (relative to 2008 levels) by 2030. That’s challenging enough — especially since easy, cost-effective options such as efficiency improvements are already in place at Maersk. And then there’s the zero carbon deadline of 2050.

To call this ambitious is an understatement.