A few months ago,
my daughter asked me
a very simple question:
“Who are your heroes, dad?”
I said, "Well, besides my father ..."
hoping she would get the hint.
(Laughter)
One of my big heroes is Malcom McLean.
I realize that Malcom McLean
is not really known on social media today,
but, in 1955, McLean invented a metal box
that changed the world:
the shipping container.
That invention reduced
the costs of shipping cargo
by more than 90 percent,
and as a consequence ...
global trade increased 200 times
and lifted hundreds of millions
of people out of poverty
by connecting them and their goods
to global markets
at very, very low cost.
I'm sure McLean's invention
started with a big dream
to transform the transportation industry,
and I know it took a lot
of attention to details
to change all of the equipment
of all of the transportation
companies worldwide
to benefit from this container.
To me, that is
what leadership is all about.
Dreams that inspire people to pursue
opportunities that may seem impossible --
and details.
Because without attention to the details,
the dream will just stay a dream.
McLean's dream was to transform
the cargo transportation industry
by making it affordable.
It is time to transform it again.
We urgently need to make it sustainable.
More than 9 percent
of CO2 emissions globally
come from transporting goods
around the world.
So what is the dream?
In 2018, the management team
of A.P. Moller - Maersk,
the global shipping company
I lead as a chairman,
made a commitment to make the company
carbon-neutral by 2050.
For some people, 2050 sounded
like a long time into the future,
but in fact,
this was a very ambitious dream
for a shipping company.
To be carbon-neutral by 2050,
we needed to invent
a zero-carbon container vessel
by 2030.
Because then, it would take
roughly 20 years
to replace all of the 750 vessels
that we operate.
So the dream was truly big
and really inspiring.
But to be honest,
in 2018, we did not know how to do this.
We had to work hard on the details.
Now at that time, we had already
focused a lot of attention
on reducing CO2 emissions from shipping.
In fact, we had achieved
more than 40 percent reduction
per container moved
since 2008.
That was done by building
bigger and more efficient vessels,
and by slow steaming,
which means sailing the vessel slower
so it consumes less fuel.
But we were reaching the limit.
Obviously, you could sail so slow
that you don't sail at all,
and you would save
all of the CO2 emissions.
(Laughter)
But that didn't seem like a good solution.
Now some of the first humans
who sailed the big oceans,
the people from Polynesia,
had figured out zero-carbon
shipping by using sails,
and it is true that sails can reduce
the fuel consumption somewhat,
but it cannot deliver on the efficiency
and accuracy needed
in today's global supply chains.
Another alternative is batteries.
But for the large vessels
sailing the big oceans,
the batteries would take up 60 percent
of the capacity of the vessel.
Some shipping companies started
ordering vessels based on LNG,
liquid natural gas.
LNG is a fossil fuel,
and it will never lead
to zero-carbon shipping.
Slow steaming, sails, batteries, LNG --
none of it would make us
be carbon-neutral.
So what else?
Well, we knew we had to look
for other solutions,
and we realized we couldn't do it alone.
To help us find a solution,
our main shareholder,
the A.P. Moller Foundation,
donated 400 million Danish krone
to create a global center
for zero-carbon shipping in Copenhagen.
That center would bring together
companies and specialists
from all over the world,
not just from the transportation industry,
but also from energy,
from chemicals and engineering.
And now, less than three years
after our big dream,
we have found the solution.
It is called "power-to-X."
Now power-to-X is not a new technology,
nor did we invent it.
It is a combination
of known chemical processes
to convert green electricity
to green fuel.
First, you convert the green electricity
from solar or wind to green hydrogen.
That is done through electrolysis.
And then, the green hydrogen
can be converted
to various types of green fuels
through chemical processes.
The benefit of power-to-X
is that it produces a green fuel
that is liquid at normal temperature
and can be used in a combustion engine.
So instead of spending 20 years
to replace all of our 750 vessels
and create a big pile of waste,
we believe we can
retrofit existing vessels
by adding a combustion engine
designed for green fuel,
and with that,
achieve zero-carbon shipping
much, much earlier.
(Applause)
On top of that, power-to-X
is actually a very nice solution
for one of the biggest problems
in renewable energy systems:
the storage problem.
When there's too much wind and sun,
you can convert the unused electricity
to a liquid green fuel
that can be used
in many different industries.
So what are the challenges?
Well, I often hear the same concern
when it comes to sustainability.
"Can we afford it?"
And yes, it is true that this green fuel
is more expensive
than the bunker fuel we use today.
In fact, it is two
to three times more expensive
with current technology.
Like always, we need
to scale these solutions
to get the cost down.
But even if the green fuel
would be two times more expensive
than the bunker fuel ...
It should not be a showstopper, come on.
Even at that price, a pair of sneakers,
transported from Asia to the US or Europe,
would only cost five cents more.
So for me,
the argument around affordability
is just a bad excuse
for not making the necessary
decisions and investments.
(Applause)
And if we had a price on CO2,
let's say around 150 dollars,
the affordability argument
would disappear.
I urge governments to show leadership
and implement a global price on CO2 now.
(Applause)
Because with that,
we could focus all of our attention
on the real issue,
which is not the price, but the scale.
At Maersk, I asked the following question:
"How much green electricity do we need
to fuel all of our 750 vessels
with green fuel?"
Our fleet today consumes
10 million tonnes of bunker oil.
To replace that with green fuel,
we estimate that we need
220,000 gigawatt-hours
of green electricity.
That is the equivalent of 10 percent
of the installed base
of solar and wind in 2019.
And Maersk is 20 percent
of the cargo shipping industry.
So to fuel the cargo shipping
industry alone
would consume 50 percent of the entire
installed base of green electricity.
And that's just cargo shipping.
In other words,
we need a dramatic,
exponential scale of installations
of solar, of wind, of hydrogen production,
of green fuel production,
to solve this problem.
We estimate that the total investment
will be in the neighborhood
of two trillion dollars,
which, granted, is a lot of money.
But actually,
it is the equivalent of four years
of capital expenditure
in the oil and gas industry today.
(Applause)
I predict that for the next 10 years,
the demand for green fuel will be
significantly higher than the supply.
Isn't that wonderful?
Higher demand and supply normally means
great business opportunities
for everyone who chooses to participate,
and it proves one of my key
assumptions in today's world:
it has become good business
to invest in sustainable solutions.
(Applause)
My conclusion is very simple.
We have the technologies needed
to create a sustainable future.
What we need is leadership,
leadership to get us there faster.
On the first of July, 2021,
Maersk ordered the first vessel
designed for green fuel.
It will be delivered in 2023.
Only two months later,
we ordered another eight large vessels
and made our first investments
in green fuel production.
What seemed to be an impossible dream
only three years ago
is becoming reality now,
seven years ahead of the original plan.
(Applause)
This is a leadership moment.
It is time for us to pursue big dreams,
even if they seem impossible.
And it is time for us to collaborate
around the critical details
so we get to a sustainable future
much, much faster.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)