Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA) has joined the Hamburg Environment Partnership with eleven of its subsidiaries, bringing membership up to 568. Especially in the field of efficient energy consumption, HHLA is well equipped for the future and making a contribution to improving the environment with its voluntary commitment. Simply through the measures scrutinized under the terms of Hamburg Environment Partnership, HHLA is making an annual saving of more than 9,000 tons of CO2.  

In presenting the certificates to Klaus-Dieter Peters, Chairman of the HHLA Executive Board, Senator Anja Hajduk, Hamburg Minister of the Environment, stressed: “I am delighted that HHLA is committing itself so intensively to environmental protection and that other companies in the port see this as a challenge that they should be emulating HHLA.” The Hamburg Senate is backing environmental protection projects by companies with numerous offers of advice and funding. The description ‘Environment Partner’, according to Anja Hajduk, has already become an accepted term, with many companies using the ‘Environment Partner’ logo in their advertising. Senator Hajduk continued: “Companies committed to the environment prove that environmental protection is compatible with commercial trading and indeed promotes the competitiveness of such companies. In this way these companies are making an important contribution to climate protection.”  
 
Klaus-Dieter Peters, Chairman of the HHLA Executive Board, said: “Sustained trading has been the practice adopted by HHLA for over 120 years now. All those building up and operating terminals, hinterland networks and logistics real estate need to think in large dimensions and to focus their business on long-term success. On the climate protection front, we use technically effective, commercially feasible opportunities for cutting CO2. We are also testing innovative technologies here so as to open up the possibility of making increased use in the port of regenerative energies in future.” Careful handling of energy, for example, not only reduces CO2 emissions but also cuts costs for the company, producing not just economic, but also ecological benefits. In addition, HHLA is investing in efficient utilization of terminal space, while its business model combines such ecologically logical carriers as the containership and rail into a commercially and ecologically sound chain.  
 
As the first company worldwide, HHLA is currently testing a straddle-carrier (a vehicle used to move and stack containers at terminal sites) embodying what is known as U-Cap technology. 200 double-layer condensers store energy in the short term (e.g., during braking), covering the ensuing energy requirement before the diesel-electric generator again resumes full output. Straddle-carriers with diesel-electric propulsion thus save around ten percent of fuel used per hour.   
 
Prior to HHLA’s accession to the Environment Partnership, HHLA Holding submitted eleven of their various measures for scrutiny. Altogether, these help to save 9,000 tons of CO2 annually. For example, they include: 
 the introduction of diesel-electric propulsion systems for handling vehicles (straddle-carriers, Automated Guided Vehicles [AGV]) at HHLA container terminals, power-saving virtualization of servers at the two HHLA data processing centres,   deployment in the Logistics segment of 90 electric forklifts with power retrieval, and an intelligent system for energy-saving space illumination.    
 
And these are the new Environment Partners:

• Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG
• HHLA Container Terminals GmbH
• HHLA Container Terminal Tollerort GmbH
• HHLA Container-Terminal Altenwerder GmbH
• HHLA Container Terminal Burchardkai GmbH
• HHLA Logistics GmbH
• HHLA Logistics Altenwerder GmbH
• HHLA Frucht- und Kühl-Zentrum GmbH
• Hansaport Hafenbetriebsgesellschaft mbH
• POLZUG Intermodal GmbH
• CTD Container-Transport-Dienst GmbH
• UNIKAI Lagerei- und Speditionsgesellschaft mbH     

Hamburg Environment Partnership in figures:

• 568 companies are Environment Partners
• Under the range of support offered by Hamburg Environment Partnership, around 2,000 “environmentally committed companies” have accepted expert advice; have invested in energy efficiency, renewable energies or structural heat insulation under the funding programmes of the Hamburg Ministry of Urban Development and Environment; or have introduced an environment management in the company.
• Subsidized to the tune of 10 million euros under the Hamburg Senate (government) programme “Companies for conserving resources”, investments by companies of altogether 100 million euros in energy efficiency are leading to annual savings of 94,000 tons of carbon dioxide and of 14 million euros of operating costs