Emission free cargo shipping

We want to promote an environmental friendly way for shipping organic goods from small coastal communities and European producers using the force of the wind only.
Hawila will be available as an alternative way of transport for local organic producer to ship their organic goods with no greenhouse gases emission. The vessel can transport 55 tons of cargo and was built for this purpose in 1935. Hawila will stay in European waters, bridging South Europe with Northern Europe, creating a direct link between producer and consumer. We will collaborate and trade with other sailing cargo vessel to ensure diversity in the products we deliver, and help create an alternative green shipping solution. The ship would be sailed by the members of the organisation, volunteers and professional sailors. All profits from the export would be kept within the organisation and used to maintain the vessel.

Today’s cargo transport: a society problem

“It is calculated that annual emissions from the world’s merchant fleet have already reached 1.12bn tonnes of CO2, or nearly 4.5% of all global emissions of the main greenhouse gas.” The guardian, 13 February 2008.

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UN report also reveals that other pollutants from shipping are rising even faster than CO2 emissions. Sulphur and soot emissions, which give rise to lung cancers, acid rain and respiratory problems are expected to rise more than 30% over the next 12 years. And today’s cargo ship sail most of the time in international waters, where no pollution regulation are applied.

When the world’s largest merchant ship ferries its monthly cargo of 13,000 containers between China and Europe it burns nearly 350 tonnes of fuel a day. The Emma Maersk supplies Britain with everything from toys and food to clothes and televisions, but its giant diesel engine can emit more than 300,000 tonnes of CO2 a year – equivalent to a medium-sized coal power station.

Whereas the aviation industry has been at the top of the climate change agenda and is expected to be included in the EU’s trading scheme, emissions from ships -which emit twice as much CO2 as planes- have gone relatively unnoticed.

“Bunker fuel is just waste oil, basically what is left over after all the cleaner fuels have been extracted from crude oil. It’s tar, the same as asphalt. It’s the cheapest and dirtiest fuel in the world,” said Christian Eyde Moller, chief executive officer of the Rotterdam-based DK Group.

The comparison with 1970 shows that shipping now is growing in a very high rate in terms of cargo carrying capacity, the ships are bigger and bigger, hence burning even more fuel. The engines are more efficient and are able to burn way thicker dirty fuels witch are emitting much more pollutants.

  • One cargo ship uses 70 barrels of bad quality oil every day
  • 90% of the worldwide goods have been transported by cargo
  • 50000 (approx.) cargo ships are transporting goods worldwide
  • The 60 biggest cargo ships (only!) are emitting as much pollutants as all the cars on the planet…
  • Global shipping industry is emitting two times more CO2 than the airline industry
  • In the same rates, shipping industry will rise by 75-150% by 2030

One solution: SAIL cargo!

Local farmers all around the world are making efforts to keep pesticides, harmful chemicals and diesel away from their farms/goods. This task is not an easy one, in some places they use vegetable oil or animals instead of machines, and permaculture or biodynamic instead of large production systems. Although the way of production can be 100% sustainable with no environmental impact, the products ends up being transported in the a non-environmental friendly way, mostly using big diesel trucks and cargos. This big contradiction the farmers are dealing with is blowing their efforts away.

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Those farmers turned their back to the large and easy production and so do we for the transport: shipping goods in traditional sailing ships yields to a reduction of more than 99% of the CO2 emissions. Moreover, according to Guillaume Le Grand (Trans Oceanic Wind Transport), sailing cargo have a very little overcost: around 0,15€ in comparison to a classical transport, and for a bottle of wine costing 6€.

Sailing cargo use only the natural power of the wind to move goods across oceans, and it is now the only solution for clean transportation with no impact on the environment.

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