Germany: EUROGATE Bremerhaven Receives NYK Captain Eco Award 2011

EUROGATE Bremerhaven Receives NYK Captain Eco Award 2011

NYK Line  GmbH has conferred its NYK Captain Eco Award 2011 on the EUROGATE Container Terminal Bremerhaven. Thorsten Kröger, General Manager of NYK Line in Hamburg, and Torben Stecher, Environmental Facilitator of the Japanese shipping company, handed over the award on 12 December in Bremerhaven to EUROGATE Sales Manager Torsten Meyer and EUROGATE Environmental Management Officer Hanna Pötter.

“We are proud to be receiving this award,” says Hanna Pötter. “Protecting the environment and our resources has a long tradition at EUROGATE. As well as the highest standards of quality and safety, sustainable use of resources is a further key element of the quality our company provides. We are especially pleased that this has also earned the recognition of our customers. Together, we are working to make the logistics chain even more eco-friendly,” EUROGATE’s Environmental Management Officer said.

Identical philosophies in environmental management

“With its environmental management, the EUROGATE Terminal in Bremerhaven corresponds exactly with our own philosophy in terms of sustainability. Maximum efficiency with minimum emissions – that is what NYK’s Corporate Social Responsibility programme likewise aims to achieve,” said Thorsten Kröger, explaining this year’s decision. “In order to reach the environmental targets it has set itself, NYK Line relies on innovative technology for its ships. So it is only logical that we should work together with service providers on the land side who follow a similar approach.”

In concrete terms, Kröger refers in this connection to the use of modern diesel electric van carriers at EUROGATE, whereby carbon dioxide emissions are reduced by up to 30 percent in comparison with traditional vehicles. And then too, there are the energy recovery systems of the container cranes. The technology used here makes it possible for up to 25 percent of the energy released, for example through braking operations, to be fed back into the grid. “The installation of photovoltaic systems on the roofs of the terminal buildings deserves special emphasis in our view, as it represents the use of renewable energy – a source of power which NYK Line too is already relying on,” said Environmental Facilitator Stecher, emphasising another point in common. The shipping company has already equipped some of its ships with solar panels, so as to use solar energy for the on-board power network.

Bremerhaven: a container hub for Asian and North American shipments

For NYK Line the EUROGATE Container Terminal Bremerhaven is an important container hub for Far East cargo and transatlantic transport. Every week its Loop C service from Southeast Asia arrives at the terminal at the mouth of the Weser. In addition, NYK Line’s GAX service offers weekly departures from Bremerhaven to the eastern coast of America and the US Gulf.

The NYK Captain Eco Award is awarded annually by NYK Line (Deutschland) GmbH to service providers whose commitment to the environment has contributed to improving the ecological balance within NYK’s transport chain. In winning the award, the Bremerhaven terminal finds itself in excellent company. NYK’s environmental award has been awarded in the past to enterprises such as D3T Duisburg Trimodal Terminal, Hamburger Hafen​ und Logistik AG, BLG Bremerhaven and the Hamburg haulage company Ancotrans. The Captain Eco Award 2011 was fashioned by Lebenshilfewerk Neumünster, an organisation providing assistance to the disabled, from native German woods, and shows NYK’s figure representing the environment, Captain Eco – a constant visual accompaniment to NYK Line’s efforts to promote sustainability.

For the NYK Group as one of the world’s leading transport and logistics enterprises, the ecologically sustainable management of resources is an important pillar of its corporate strategy. Under the auspices of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme it has defined ambitious targets and promoted various measures – for example with a view to reducing energy consumption, saving natural resources and lowering the output of toxic emissions. In October of this year the Japanese corporate group introduced its NYK CO2 E-Calculator. This climatic calculation tool (www.nykgroup-e-calculator.com) offers NYK customers the opportunity of determining levels of CO2 emissions for sea and air container shipments online, thus making it easier for them to choose the most sustainable transport solutions available.

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World Maritime News Staff, December 12, 2011; Image: EUROGATE