CMA CGM creates Special Fund for Energies

French containership giant CMA CGM has created a $1.5 billion fund to accelerate a company-wide transition to renewable energy sources, the company said this week.

The logistics company’s five-year Special Fund for Energies will include a team dedicated to accelerating decarbonization across its shipping, inland, and logistics operations globally.

CMA CGM has set a goal to be carbon-neutral by 2050.

The fund will invest to support the industrial production of new fuels as well as low-emission mobility solutions across CMA CGM’s business base, which includes maritime, overland, and air freight shipping; port and logistics services; and offices. It will also help support a “global innovation platform” developed alongside large corporations, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), start-ups, and the academic and scientific community, according to company leaders.

The fund is focused on four key areas:

• Supporting the development and production of renewable fuels—including biofuels, biomethane, e-methane, and carbon-free methanol;
• Accelerating the decarbonization of port terminals, warehouses, and truck fleets—via wind, solar, and other efforts to produce carbon-free electricity, and the use of electric port equipment, where “feasible and effective”;
• Supporting, trialing, and launching projects at the cutting edge of innovation–such as alternative energy prototypes;
• And pursuing energy savings and improving the energy efficiency of CMA CGM employee working methods and daily mobility.

“The CMA CGM Group has been acting to protect the environment for many years. It is at the heart of my convictions and of our strategy,” Rodolphe Saadé, chairman and CEO of the CMA CGM Group, said in a press release detailing the fund. “However, in the face of the climate emergency it is our duty to do more and accelerate our actions. This fund will enable us to make substantial investments in innovative projects to decarbonize our business. We have allocated the resources needed to accelerate our energy transition and that of the entire shipping and logistics industry.”