Why sustainable marine fuel matters – and how you can use it

For all its potential, SMF faces two major hurdles. The first is supply. Global production is growing, but nowhere near fast enough to meet demand from shippers who want to reduce their Scope 3 GHG emissions. The second is distribution. Marine fuels are blended and allocated through complex fuel supply networks, making it impossible to direct specific volumes of SMF to individual vessels carrying a customer’s cargo.

That’s why partnerships across the industry matter. Moving SMF from early pilots to a viable, scalable solution requires coordinated action. That’s why our ocean freight experts at DHL Global Forwarding are establishing long-term agreements – and these collaborations are showing us what decarbonizing marine transport can look like in practice.

For example, DHL Global Forwarding expanded its partnership with Henkel to increase the use of SMF across its global supply chain. Through our GoGreen Plus service, we’re now using SMF for most of Henkel’s ocean freight. This supports the company’s ambition to reduce Scope 3 emissions and to make its product value chains more sustainable. As a global consumer-goods company with demanding transport flows, Henkel’s commitment also helps create the long-term demand signals needed to expand SMF production.

To enable our customers like Henkel to leverage SMF through our GoGreen Plus service, we need to closely collaborate with our carrier partners, such as Hapag-Lloyd, one of the world’s leading ocean carriers. DHL Global Forwarding and Hapag-Lloyd have signed a three-year framework agreement to reduce Scope 3 GHG emissions by using SMF, particularly second-generation biofuels produced from waste and residue feedstocks. Under the agreement, Hapag-Lloyd will allocate sustainable fuel on behalf of DHL to reduce GHG emissions associated with our containers travelling on their vessels. The agreement kicked off with an initial order equivalent to a well-to-wake emissions reduction of 25,000 tons of CO₂e.

Furthermore, we’ve launched a joint biofuel initiative with CMS CGM , a global player in sea, land, air, and logistics solutions . The collaboration allows us to take advantage of the company’s ACT+ low-carbon transport solutions, enabling an estimated reduction of 25,000 tons of CO₂e well-to-wake emissions for ocean freight transported under DHL’s GoGreen Plus Service.   

These partnerships underscore how logistics leaders can offer shippers low-emissions options for moving their goods, build momentum for SMF production, and accelerate the industry’s transition to alternative marine fuels.

Even when companies want to use SMF, there’s a practical challenge: It’s currently only available in a limited number of locations worldwide, and shipping it around the world would add unnecessary transport activity and emissions.

That’s where the book & claim system comes in. Rather than trying to use SMF in specific ships, book & claim matches the emissions reductions from SMF with the customers who have paid for it. So, we don’t buy and sell SMF – instead, we pay carriers to use SMF and receive the environmental benefit in the form of Emission Reduction Attributes (ERAs), which we pass on to our customers.

When customers use our GoGreen Plus services, here’s what is happening in the background:

1. Our partner carriers switch to SMF. We pay carriers to buy and burn verified sustainable fuel in their operations.
2. We receive Emission Reduction Attributes (ERAs). Verified ERAs, calculated according to recognized standards for GHG emissions accounting, are issued and linked to shipments we purchased.
3. We decouple and manage the ERAs. These ERAs represent the environmental benefit of the SMF used. We decouple them from the original shipments and store them in a traceable ERA inventory.
4. We reallocate the ERAs to customers. Customers who choose our GoGreen Plus services receive the ERAs, allowing them to claim the reduction in Scope 3 GHG emissions, even if their shipments were not physically transported with SMF.

This approach follows the Smart Freight Centre’s (SFC) ‘Marked based measures’ framework and uses recognized emissions accounting standards – supporting the broader adoption of sustainable fuels across global supply chains. Most importantly, it enables companies to contribute to real emissions reductions – even when the physical fuel is used elsewhere in the network. 

With book & claim providing a reliable way to allocate verified emissions reductions, the next step is giving customers a practical way to access SMF. That’s the role of GoGreen Plus. Through this service, customers can reduce the Scope 3 GHG emissions of their ocean freight, no matter what or where they are shipping. It’s a flexible and effective way to make your business more sustainable while helping drive up demand for SMF.

One of the early adopters of this approach is Lindex. With approximately 440 stores in 18 markets, the global fashion retailer has committed to cutting transport emissions by half through 2030. Nearly 90% of its goods are transported by ship, making access to alternative marine fuels a meaningful step toward achieving its sustainability goals. Lindex was the first company to use SMF via GoGreen Plus for both full-container-load (FCL) and less-than-container-load (LCL) shipments.

As more companies choose SMF, the market for sustainable fuels grows – sending strong demand signals to producers and carriers. Our job is to make choosing sustainability as straightforward as possible. That’s what GoGreen Plus is all about.

Choosing sustainable solutions is just the first step. The real value comes from knowing the impact of those choices – and that requires reliable data. Before you decide to use SMF, you need to understand the environmental footprint of your logistics. One way to do that is with myDHLi.

With myDHLi, customers gain end-to-end visibility of their logistics and supply chains – tracking shipments, comparing routes and modes of transport, and viewing associated GHG emissions all in one place. This transparency helps businesses plan smarter and make informed decisions about when, where, and how to best use GoGreen Plus, whether booking SMF for ocean freight or SAF for air freight.

Digital tools like myDHLi are becoming benchmarks in the logistics industry – making it easier to integrate sustainability into everyday operations by providing the visibility companies need to balance cost, transit time, and environmental impact.