CO2e emissions
Royal Greenland works to make CO2 equivalent calculations comparable and transparent.
At Royal Greenland and in industry in general, a lot of effort is currently being devoted to calculating Scopes 1, 2 and 3 for CO 2 emissions and to developing and testing Carbon Footprint calculation methods.
Today, Royal Greenland uses Marine Gas Oil (MGO) on all vessels. The advantage is that MGO has a very low sulphur content (< 0.1%) and therefore pollutes less than Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO). MGO also has a lower volume of black particle emissions. The CO2e emission rate is the same for the two types of oil.
Research and testing within alternative energy sources and fuels are followed with interest, while security of supply is crucial to the day-to-day operations of a company like Royal Greenland.
Risks and opportunities
The risk of increasing CO2e emissions has an adverse impact on the surrounding environment, with the risk of ice melting and a resulting impact on the climate and new weather phenomena. These affect fisheries and present challenges for crews on board, just as fish stocks can be augmented or reduced.
Rising temperatures can bring new species to the otherwise very cold Arctic waters. In recent years, cod has returned to Greenlandic waters, just as pelagic species such as mackerel have been present sporadically in recent years.
Actions and results 2022
The Group's emissions in 2022 totalled approximately 128,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalents. The larger ocean-going vessels account for approximately 78%.
In 2022, the factory trawlers’ emissions of tonnes of CO2e per tonne of volume fished increased. This was due to several yard visits, engine failures, and a long distance to fish in the Barents Sea and Melville Bay. Furthermore, none of the vessels functioned as catch landing vessels, as was the case in 2021. The result was thus affected by several parameters and unforeseen events.
Goals and achievement of the goals 2019-2022
Goal:
- No goal has been set for the vessels' CO2e emissions.
- Determine a method for calculation of Scope 3.
- Develop and test a method for calculation of product groups' carbon footprint.
Achievement of the goal:
During the period, vessels' CO2e emissions were monitored closely to learn more about the development over the years, during the implementation of the new vessels. The CO2e emissions over a number of years, and across types of vessels, reflect differences in fishing patterns, coastal and ocean-going fishing, and seabed or surface fishing.
Calculations for Scope 3 have not yet been completed, which is expected to take place in 2023.
There is ongoing work to calculate product groups' carbon footprint, or the climate footprint per kg of finished product, via an EU project to establish category rules for the calculation of Product Environmental Footprint (PEFCR) specifically for fish products. The project is approaching completion, and in autumn 2022, one of Royal Greenland's products was tested in a case study in order to provide input for the European Commission's legislative work in this area.
Royal Greenland has also worked with an analysis institute in Sweden on the calculation of the CO2e emissions for four prawn products. In this analysis, emissions from fisheries until dispatch from the processing plant are calculated. The project was not yet fully completed at the end of 2022.
Ambitions for 2030
To reduce CO2e emissions by 25% from 2018, measured as CO2e/tonnes caught.
