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In September 2023, and amid great fanfare, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen officially named the world’s first containership powered by green methanol, AP Moller-Maersk’s Laura Maersk.
In that same month, Maersk’s marketing and communications team were in full flow, positioning the company as a leader in pioneering new, green fuels as it launched a new outfit, C2X, to develop, own and operate green methanol production facilities with a production capacity target of over three million tonnes by 2030.
Fast-forward nine months to a truly coffee-spitting moment in July 2024, when we all learned of Maersk’s order for at least 22 newbuild LNG dual-fuelled container ships.
The news came just three years after Maersk’s then-head of decarbonisation, innovation and business development was quoted as saying it was “borderline greenwashing to call LNG a transition fuel towards the decarbonisation of shipping”. The news is indeed a “jaw-dropping change of tack for [the] methanol pioneer”, as TradeWinds put it last month.
The about-face reveals much more than just the position of one large and influential container company. It also speaks volumes about where the industry is in the transition to e-fuels, with huge consequences for shipping in meeting its IMO’s GHG emissions reduction targets.
Shipping is just not yet able – unless it has the scale and capital found at Maersk - to act as a large, homogenous offtaker in a way that enables its constituents to drive down prices and send clear demand signals to green hydrogen developers. And even for Maersk, this will take time. Moreover, the industry is only willing to pay a fraction of the cost for new, low-carbon fuels compared to its new competitor industries like steel or agriculture.
Which begs the question: why did Maersk’s leadership not see this, and prevent this from looking like a U-turn? Or did they see it, but just not flag this incoming brand and reputational meteorite internally, and – critically – to its communications and marketing team? Or did they just not understand its brand and reputational importance?
To put things in perspective, Maersk essentially confirmed with its recent announcement that it is committed to emitting millions of tonnes of carbon for the rest of this decade and through the 2030s. This is not to say that LNG can’t offer a sustainable pathway, and act as a bridge to bio or synthetic LNG, but let’s be clear: e-fuels in liquid form, not gaseous, will mostly likely be required to meet the majority of shipping’s fuel needs for future decades.
After such fanfare and investment in parading the Laura Maersk – including a continuous pipeline of communication updates in the form of interviews, blogs and videos around the advent of green methanol – one wonders how President Ursula von der Leyen’s office is feeling after the LNG turnaround.
Unsurprisingly, there was no fanfare from Maersk in announcing its LNG commitment. Why would there be? The decision on LNG is businesslike; like many others, it is doing what is practical and realistic. Yet, unlike others, Maersk had positioned itself as a vanguard of low-carbon shipping. In not cementing its communications and marketing in the truth, shipping’s most visible brand looks at best hypocritical, and, at worst, a personification of blatant greenwashing.
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