Major retailers Amazon and Ikea are leading a group of over 30 companies in a groundbreaking initiative to accelerate the adoption of environmentally friendly fuels in ocean shipping, with plans to launch a significant tender in January 2025.

The Zero Emissions Maritime Buyers Alliance (ZEMBA) aims to transform maritime transport by creating substantial demand for near-zero emissions e-fuels, targeting operations to begin in 2027.

The initiative plans to aggregate demand for at least 80 billion tonne nautical miles, equivalent to moving 1.4 million twenty-foot containers between Shanghai and Los Angeles. This shift could potentially reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 470,000 metric tonnes.

"This is how you get on path and on track to being net-zero," said Carl Berger, who leads sustainability and export operations for Amazon Global Logistics.

The world's shipping fleet, responsible for moving more than 80 per cent of global trade, currently contributes about 3 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. ZEMBA believes green fuels are crucial for decarbonising the industry, citing their potential to compete with fossil fuels on both cost and supply.

"ZEMBA is making history by voluntarily catalysing commercial e-fuel deployment through our next collective tender," said Ingrid Irigoyen, president and chief executive officer of ZEMBA. "Our members are demonstrating that freight buyers are willing to make multi-year advanced offtake commitments now to incentivize the creation of new markets for the most scalable solutions."

The alliance has expanded to include 40 multinational companies, with recent additions including AIT Worldwide, dsm-firmenich, and SEKO Logistics. The initiative builds upon ZEMBA's first successful tender, completed in April 2024, which introduced liquified biomethane as a green fuel alternative.

While alliance members expect to pay a premium initially for these environmentally friendly alternatives, they aim to drive down costs as demand and supply for e-fuels increase. The tender will prioritise solutions offering at least 90 per cent emission reduction, with bids accepted from both individual carriers and consortiums.

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