I have been searching the web for a simple answer, if there is such a thing, to the following question. What is the carbon footprint of shipping a 40ft container by freighter compared to shipping by truck. More specifically I am looking for the impact from HK to the West Coast of Canada by ship compared to Toronto to Vancouver by truck. My simpleton gut feeling it will be the same or the container shipping will be more efficient.

Thanks
James

Thank you so much for putting the effort into that extra research! Please thank your dad for me also. I’ll send a link to a few people that I came across in my research and were also finding it hard to uncover information on the subject – you and your dad seem to have a knack for it!

Paul Chiplen at CO2 Balance also helped me get my head round it – we worked out that for my distance on cargo ship travel of 7,194 km multiplied by the DEFRA figure of a large container with dead weight 20,000 tonnes at 0.013 kgCO2/tkm, then multiplied by my weight at roughly 0.07 tonnes:

GHG Emissions = 7,194 km x 0.070 t x 0.013 kgCO2/tkm = 6.5 kg CO2

However the possible container ship is 45, 470 tonnes dead weight so the emissions would be higher. It is also 15 years old so as you rightly pointed out would emit more sulpher dioxide and nitrogen oxides.

Unfortunately my sponsored activities and other funds to take this leg of my journey (Italy – India) were not sufficient to cover the £1930 cost so I have had to revert back to my origional option of traveling along the Trans-Mongolian railway to Beijing and then flying to Delhi – costing the planet 0.53 tonnes which is almost x100 more than the cargo ship part of my journey.

Do you have an email address I can contact you on rather than pasting on the internet? My facebook is Sophia Campbell, you can message me it on there.

Love and thanks,

Sophia x