AP Moller-Maersk chief executive Vincent Clerc stood beside Nike’s top supply chain executive last week as he inaugurated green methanol-powered container shipping to the US.
But how did the sportswear giant’s Venkatesh Alagirisamy earn the praise of the container shipping major?
Nike is an early member of the Zero Emission Maritime Buyers Alliance and has been targeting maritime emissions in its sustainability efforts.
It is also a Maersk customer that has shown a willingness to pony up for freight powered by greener fuels. However, that does not mean environmental groups see it as a star performer.
Clerc said on LinkedIn: “I am proud to stand with our valued customer Nike and Venkatesh Alagirisamy, who has championed climate responsibility within the supply chain, embracing our Eco Delivery biofuel programme and setting standards we hope others will follow.”
Clerc’s praise for Alagirisamy came after Nike joined Maersk in a ceremony to name the 15,200-teu Alette Maersk (built 2024) at the port of Los Angeles. The event featured gold medal snowboarder Chloe Kim, a Nike-sponsored athlete.
Maersk’s Eco Delivery programme allows customers to pay for lower-emission shipping, powered by biofuels or methanol.
Maersk did not respond to TradeWinds’ request for elaboration on the merits of Nike and its supply chain chief, and Nike did not respond to a request to interview Alagirisamy.
But Nike, a major shipper of containerised volumes, said in its impact report for its 2023 fiscal year that it moved 13% of its inbound ocean shipping with certified sustainable biofuels last year.
“Nike continued to scale the ocean freight alternative fuel program with our logistics service providers,” the company said, noting that the biofuels shipping avoided some 21,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.
“Nike will continue to work with logistics service providers to scale this program through increased investments in sustainable alternative fuels and new vessels capable of using renewable fuels such as green methanol and green ammonia.”
The company, whose 2023 fiscal year ended in May of last year despite the report’s publication in March of this year, said that in the short term, it is working to address the higher costs of sustainable shipping fuels by participating in collaborative procurement initiatives like the Zero Emission Maritime Buyers Alliance.
The Aspen Institute-organised alliance, also known as Zemba and made up of several retail giants that include Amazon, Meta and Ikea, pooled green shipping demand to award a tender in May to Hapag-Lloyd to move containers using liquefied biomethane, or bio-LNG.
Nike said it wants such collaboration to send a clear signal for sustainable shipping.
Its efforts also involve reducing air freight, since the emissions per product are 40% higher than ocean shipping.
“It’s a critical lever to reduce transportation emissions,” Nike said in the impact report.
“Inbound emissions remained low in fiscal year ’23 due to a sustained reduction in inbound air freight rates from fiscal year ’20 levels.”
That adds to a broader goal of reducing its emissions in line with the Science Based Targets initiative’s path for halting global temperature rises at 1.5C for its owned and operated facilities.
The company said it achieved a 69% reduction last year, compared with 2020 levels.
Despite Nike’s progress, the Ship It Zero coalition gave the shoe giant a “D” on its last report card for shipping emissions — but most retailers received an “F” grade.
The coalition, led by green groups Pacific Environment and Stand.Earth, is trying to persuade retail giants to move all their cargoes on ships powered by zero-emission fuels by 2030.
Nike received an “F” for efforts to end in-port pollution and a “D” for the campaign’s goal of abandoning dirty ships, but it scored a “C” for the goal of having zero emissions at the centre of climate goals.
“Though Nike earned a ‘D’ on the Ship it Zero 2023 Report Card, it is just a few steps away from a much stronger grade in its fight against maritime shipping pollution,” the campaign said at the time. “We urge Nike to ‘Just Do It!’”
When the 2024 report comes out, we will see if Nike has just done it.
