DC Velocity - February 2020

NEWSWORTHY

CONTAINER SHIPPING GIANT CMA CGM CONTINUES TO advance its clean fuel initiatives, most recently via a partnership with the Royal Dutch Shell oil and gas company for marine biofuel.

CMA CGM said Shell will supply “tens of thousands of tons” of sec-ond-generation biofuel derived from cooking oil for its fleet—enough to travel nearly 1 million kilometers or the equivalent of 80 round trips between Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and New York. CMA CGM did not specify how many of its containerships will run on the new marine biofuel.

The deal furthers the shipping giant’s eco-friendly fuel efforts, advancing a test program it ran last year that used marine biofuel onboard the containerships CMA CGM White Shark and CMA CGM Alexander Von Humboldt, the company also said. The new biofuel is composed of 80% low-sulfur fuel oil and 20% biofuel made from used cooking oil; it reduces greenhouse-gas emissions by 80% and virtually eliminates sulfur oxide emissions, according to CMA CGM.

The initiative comes as maritime freight operators throughout the industry look for ways to meet “IMO 2020” sulfur emission caps that took effect at the beginning of the year. In another step toward that goal, CMA CGM also recently announced a partnership with liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplier Total to provide roughly 270,000 metric tons per year of LNG over 10 years to fuel 15,000 20-foot equivalent unit (TEU) containerships based at the Port of Marseille-Fos in France that will operate between Asia and the Mediterranean. Those ships are scheduled for delivery starting in 2021, the company said. LNG reduces sulfur oxide and fine particle emissions by 99%, nitrogen oxide emissions by up to 85%, and carbon dioxide emissions by about 20%. ;

—Victoria Kickham

Investment in last-mile delivery startups more than doubled from 2017 to 2018, as supply chains continue to become more connected, holistic, and automated, according to a December study by consulting firm Deloitte.

The study, The Future of the Movement of Goods, points to a host of changes occurring in the freight landscape, especially when it comes to last-mile delivery. The increased investment in last-mile startups indicates a pending “significant disruption within the last mile of delivery,” the study authors said.

“The foundation of a next-generation
global movement-of-goods network is
actively forming as companies of all sizes,
including startups, put a focus on an
end-to-end supply chain ecosystem with
a critical eye on the last 1,000 feet of
direct-to-consumer delivery,” the study
authors wrote. “From 2017 to 2018, the
funding flow of ‘smart money’ from cap-
ital investors to support last-mile deliv-
ery more than doubled. Plus, the trend
of crowdsourcing to accommodate and
strengthen last-mile solutions for delivery
of goods accounted for 72%, outpac-
ing collection-point networks and lockers,
digital aggregators, software and droids,
and drones.”
Such changes are creating a new eco-
system for the movement of goods—and
requiring supply chain companies to eval-
uate where they stand in the new land-
scape so they can adapt to the changes,
the authors also said. “Over time, a glob-
al population of consumers demanding
greater delivery volume, speed, flexibility,
transparency, and convenience will force
players to adapt,” Michael Daher, Deloitte
principal and U.S. transportation practice
leader, said in a statement. ;
Deloitte study: Last-mile
challenges drive change in
freight landscape