This may be the most sustainable car carrier ever built

This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum.

Author: Rebecca Geldard, Senior Writer, Forum Agenda

The maritime sector is responsible for almost 3% of global GHG emissions.
Höegh Autoliners has designed a multi-fuel car carrier to help decarbonize shipping and its associated supply chains.
It was one of the first shipping firms to join the World Economic Forum’s First Movers Coalition and is working with them to advance the development of clean tech across hard-to-abate sectors.

Think car transporters and it’s possibly the double-decker, scary-to-meet-on-the-road vehicles that spring to mind. But when it comes to long haulage, new cars are most often shipped – nowadays in purpose-built, increasingly efficient vessels.

The process has evolved massively since the 1960s – from “tween-deck” general cargo ships to the roll-on-roll-off or “RoRo” pure car and truck carriers (PCTC) that have become the industry norm – but it still carries an environmental cost.

Given shipping’s long dependence on carbon-intensive fuels and the sheer scale of operations, it has traditionally been a big emitter of greenhouse gases. The maritime sector is currently responsible for almost 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, but is also an area ripe for green innovation, according to the United Nations.

Innovating for a greener shipping sector

And breakthroughs in low- and zero-carbon fuels and other technologies are heralding hope of cleaning up the long-haul delivery journey.

Höegh Autoliners is taking up the challenge. In 2022, it was one of the first shipping firms to join the Forum’s First Movers Coalition (FMC), a group of companies working to advance the development of clean tech across the hard-to-abate sectors.

A global provider of RoRo transportation services, making around 3,000 port calls each year, the Norway-based company says it has developed the most environmentally friendly car carrier to date.

“We dreamed of taking the company in a whole new direction, adapting our current and future fleet to a green and more sustainable future. We succeeded in doing that with the launch of our Aurora class vessels and are now ahead of the pack in sustainable deep-sea transportation. No one has designed a similar vessel,” says Chief Operations Officer, Sebjørn Dahl.

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What’s the World Economic Forum doing about the transition to clean energy?

Moving to clean energy is key to combating climate change, yet in the past five years, the energy transition has stagnated.

Energy consumption and production contribute to two-thirds of global emissions, and 81% of the global energy system is still based on fossil fuels, the same percentage as 30 years ago. Plus, improvements in the energy intensity of the global economy (the amount of energy used per unit of economic activity) are slowing. In 2018 energy intensity improved by 1.2%, the slowest rate since 2010.

Effective policies, private-sector action and public-private cooperation are needed to create a more inclusive, sustainable, affordable and secure global energy system.

Benchmarking progress is essential to a successful transition. The World Economic Forum’s Energy Transition Index, which ranks 115 economies on how well they balance energy security and access with environmental sustainability and affordability, shows that the biggest challenge facing energy transition is the lack of readiness among the world’s largest emitters, including US, China, India and Russia. The 10 countries that score the highest in terms of readiness account for only 2.6% of global annual emissions.

To future-proof the global energy system, the Forum’s Shaping the Future of Energy and Materials Platform is working on initiatives including, Systemic Efficiency, Innovation and Clean Energy and the Global Battery Alliance to encourage and enable innovative energy investments, technologies and solutions.

Additionally, the Mission Possible Platform (MPP) is working to assemble public and private partners to further the industry transition to set heavy industry and mobility sectors on the pathway towards net-zero emissions. MPP is an initiative created by the World Economic Forum and the Energy Transitions Commission.

Is your organisation interested in working with the World Economic Forum? Find out more here.

A zero-carbon ship

The multi-fuel Aurora class vessel will be the first PCTC to operate on zero-carbon ammonia, but with DNV’s ammonia and methanol-ready notation, can be run on either fuel. It is also the largest of its kind, the company says – designed to carry 9,100 cars.

Twelve vessels are currently on order with China Merchants Heavy Industry (Jiangsu) Co, Ltd. Höegh Autoliners anticipates a delivery schedule of two every six months starting from the second half of 2024. The entire fleet will be digitalized, it says, with Vessel Insight – Kongsberg Digital’s cloud infrastructure – installed for their maiden voyages.

As an FMC member, Höegh Autoliners has committed to running at least 5% of its deep-sea operation on carbon-neutral fuels, and aims to achieve carbon neutrality across the enterprise by 2040.

Sebjørn Dahl adds: “The Aurora class represents the future of our business as well as the future of the industry. We are proud to be setting the gold standard by reducing our environmental footprint significantly and enabling our customers to decarbonize their supply chain as well.”