Arvid Nordquist, with the help of Scanlog, has signed an agreement to transport a large number of containers with raw coffee beans using biofuel.
Arvid Nordquist has for a long time strived for fossil-free freight transports and has in recent years worked intensively to achieve this. The work has resulted in the company today having about 80% fossil-free distribution, and that a large portion of inbound transports is carried out by rail.
The challenge has been to find a corresponding fossil-free solution for shipping. Today, Arvid Nordquist and Scanlog can present a new agreement with the shipping company Hamburg Süd to transport a large number of raw coffee containers with biofuel.
To make further improvements, it is on the shipping side that you want to move forward with sustainable alternatives. We have had an extensive dialogue with Scanlog in order to try to find that type of alternative and invest in fossil-free fuels. For us, it is the last piece of the puzzle to secure that we have fossil-free transport in all modes of transport and product areas, says Tomas Skenbäck, Manager Logistics Controlling and Development at Arvid Nordquist.
The fossil-free bunker fuel Ecofuel is used by the so-called mass balance principle. This means that Arvid Nordquist invests in the corresponding amount of biofuel that is used for its own transports, but that the biofuel is not necessarily used in the particular vessels that transport raw coffee beans. All Ecofuel fuel is third-party certified according to RSB or ISCC and is estimated to reduce Arvid Nordquist’s CO2e emissions from shipping by approximately 75%. The remaining 25% that cannot yet be reduced is carbon offset.
Arvid Nordquist är en av de första skandinaviska kunder som gör denna investering. For Scanlog, this is a step towards the shipping of the future.
It means a lot that Arvid Nordquist invests in this type of project that drives the development forward towards completely fossil-free transportation. The technology for fossil-free shipping is available, but biofuels are unfortunately more expensive due to limited supply. With this type of investment, supply and hopefully also industry demand will increase, says Mathias Wideroth, Chairman of the Board of Scanlog.
Arvid Nordquist and Scanlog have worked together since 2014 and have since made quarterly environmental impact analyses for all transports, which has led to the question of how to reduce the carbon footprint being raised. So far, the supply of biofuels is low, but there is hope that more players will want to follow suit.
It is a challenging world where we do what we can to take responsibility for our parts. We want to believe and see that more shipping companies go this route and offer the opportunity to buy fossil-free transport. This will be an important factor in the future when we decide which shipping companies we work with, Tomas concludes.
The agreement, starting in April 2022, initially includes approximately 260 containers from Brazil, which corresponds to approximately 30% of Arvid Nordquist’s total raw coffee bean flow. The hope is that the project will be scaled up in the future.
Arvid Nordquist is a family-owned coffee roastery established in 1884. Arvid Nordquist coffee has about 25 percent market share and is number two in the Swedish grocery trade and a leader in sustainability. For the past seven years, the company has been roasting exclusively 100% sustainably certified coffee by Rainforest Alliance / UTZ Certified and Fairtrade. Ten years ago, Arvid Nordquist developed a strategy for carbon neutrality with annual carbon dioxide calculations according to the Green House Gas Protocol. Arvid Nordquist currently has 100% fossil-free coffee roastery, 92% fossil-free distribution, packaging with 90% bioplastic and all remaining CO2 emissions have been offset for ten years through carbon offsetting in tree planting projects in coffee-growing countries.
