Ports and transport service providers are working together to make connections between Germany and Sweden even more environmentally friendly through intermodal transport.
During the "Intermodal transport connections - an answer to climate change" event in Trelleborg, organized by Lübecker Hafen-Gesellschaft mbH (LHG), the Port of Trelleborg, and Port of Hamburg Marketing reg. Assoc. (HHM), experts discussed ways to make the connections even more environmentally friendly.
Marina Basso Michael, regional director of Europe at HHM, and Håkan Nilsson, Director of Industry at the Swedish Freight Forwarders' Association, noted the importance of joint action by all parties involved in the transport chain to achieve more sustainable transport flow.
"Against the background of high CO2 emissions, it is important to drive the systemic change towards climate neutrality," Basso Michael said in her welcome speech.
In a statement, Port of Hamburg noted that many parties involved in transport between Sweden and Germany are already on the right track.
Hinterland connections
Jörgen Nilsson, managing director of the Port of Trelleborg — one of Sweden's busiest cargo ports — presented the ambitious plans of Sweden's second-largest port to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040, emphasising the need to develop hinterland connections.
In Germany, the Port of Lübeck is also in the process of making its operations more environmentally friendly.
"As the most important hub for traffic to and from Sweden, LHG continues to advocate the development of the most sustainable and shortest connection using intermodal transport and ferries," said Ortwin Harms, managing director of Lübecker Hafen-Gesellschaft mbH.
"To this end, we are expanding our intermodal terminal and at the same time adapting to the new, larger and more environmentally friendly ship systems," he added.
Another milestone on the way to more environmentally friendly transport is the ferry service in the Baltic Sea with TT-Line's LNG-powered ferries, which Christian Carl, head of Intermodal at TT-Line GmbH & Co. KG, presented.
For Jörg Ulrich, managing director of European Cargo Logistics GmbH, there is also a need for horizontal cooperation between market players.
In addition, Ulrich noted that there must be a fair distribution of the financial risks involved in the introduction of new environmentally friendly hinterland transport solutions.
The EU project Blue Supply Chains aims to find out what other solutions might be available to promote sustainability in the sector.
"We started in January this year with 20 partners to identify further methods to reduce emissions in ports," said Inga Gurries, head of market development Asia and Project Manager at HHM.
Meanwhile, during the same event, Uwe Sondermann, managing director of Kombiconsult GmbH, called for harmonised penalties for polluters across the European Union in hopes of implementing more environmentally friendly measures in the industry more quickly, even if this involves a higher financial outlay.
Sweden and Germany are two highly developed industrialised countries with long-standing economic relations based on strong foreign trade.
Germany is one of Sweden's most important trading partners, and this relationship is also reflected in a large number of connections between the German and Swedish North Sea and Baltic Sea ports.
The Port of Lübeck, for example, handled almost nine million tonnes of cargo with Sweden last year. In Hamburg, 292,000 TEUs crossed the quays.