As companies worldwide seek to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, many are swapping out diesel trucks for battery-powered vehicles. In New Zealand, coastal ship operator and domestic cargo carrier Pacifica Shipping is following that strategy too, but with an added twist—it’s combining the new trucks with low-emission coastal shipping.
The Auckland-based company says it aims to create one of New Zealand’s lowest-emission supply chains for heavy freight by linking zero-emission, battery-swapping, fully electric trucks with a coastal shipping network. The service will initially move cargo for multinational bottling company Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP), which has signed on as the project’s first “product partner.”
Co-funded by New Zealand’s Energy Efficiency & Conservation Authority (EECA), the initiative will see the deployment of battery-electric trucks for the shipments’ first and last mile, along with low-emission “coasters”— small vessels used for coastal shipping—for the long-haul portion of the trip. The project is expected to eliminate 5,100 conventional combustion-engine truck movements and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to 275 metric tons annually.
Coastal shipping, sometimes called the “Blue Highway,” already enjoys significant advantages as one of the most sustainable means for transporting goods, according to the carrier. A recent study by the University of Canterbury (and supported by Pacifica’s parent company, Swire Shipping Ltd.) found that compared to road freight, coastal shipping produces one-fifth the “well-to-wheel” carbon emissions—meaning all emissions related to fuel production, processing, distribution, and use.
The first phase of the project will use battery-electric trucks to move loaded maritime containers between CCEP’s Mount Wellington site and the Port of Auckland. Subsequent operations will expand to the Port of Christchurch, with a route between Lyttelton Port Co. and CCEP’s Woolston site.
