Average emissions intensity in global container shipping increased by 1.5% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2026. But beneath that headline number, a very different picture is emerging. Most vessel segments actually became more efficient, while there are still significant differences between carriers operating comparable services on the same trade lanes.
Athens-based VesselBot analyzed 86,389 voyages by 6,523 container vessels. The results suggest that fleet-wide and trade-lane averages, commonly used by shippers and regulators to estimate environmental performance, can mask important variation in how individual voyages are conducted.
Most vessel segments show improvements, but fleet average worsens
Overall Well-to-Wake emissions intensity was 231.7 grams of CO2 equivalent per TEU-kilometer in Q2 2026, up 1.5% compared to the same quarter last year.
But efficiency gains were evident in five of the six vessel-size categories included in the analysis. Gains were from 0.9% for Panamax vessels to 10.6% for Very Large Container Ships (VLCS).
But the feeder segment was the exception Feeder vessels accounted for 63.9% of total voyages during the quarter and became less efficient. The deterioration was enough to drag the overall fleet average higher despite improvements in the other vessel categories.
“That is the risk of managing to an average. It can lead you in the opposite direction of what is really happening,” said Constantine Komodromos, chief executive and founder of VesselBot in a release.
Transport work is disproportionately concentrated in larger vessels
The analysis additionally emphasizes the crucial role played by the world’s largest container ships in global trade.
Neo-Panamax and VLCS vessels made up just 7.4% of all voyages in Q2, but accounted for 43.5% of total transport work and just 27.4% of emissions.
For feeder and Panamax ships the pattern was almost the reverse. They made 80% of voyages in total, but accounted for only 26% of the transport work, and were responsible for 45.6% of total emissions.
The analysis by VesselBot was based on AIS tracked voyage data and vessel specific digital twin models. The methodology estimates the Well-to-Wake emissions intensity per voyage, not using averages reported by carriers or industry benchmarks.
The results also point to the importance of major long-haul container corridors. The four main fronthaul lanes – China/East Asia to Northern Europe, the Mediterranean and the North America West Coast, and Northern Europe to the North America East Coast – accounted for just 1.2% of all Q2 voyages.
These services accounted for 21.7% of quarterly transport work, but only 12.3% of emissions, although they represented a small proportion of total voyages.
31.3% efficiency gap on Northern Europe-North America route
The differences between carriers are particularly pronounced when you look at individual services.
Quarterly average Well-to-Wake emissions intensity on the Northern Europe-North America East Coast trade was 138 grams of CO2e per TEU-kilometer.
Hapag-Lloyd and Mediterranean Shipping Co. performed better than the route average but with very different results.
Hapag-Lloyd reported average emissions intensity of 80.7 grams of CO2e per TEU-kilometer, down 59% from the trade average. Meanwhile, MSC registered 117.5 grams, 15% below the route average.
The two carriers were operating between similar port pairs, with similar voyage distances, but had a 31.3% efficiency gap.
The finding suggests that factors other than distance are important in determining emissions performance, such as vessel deployment, cargo utilization and the execution of individual voyages.
“What a shipper sees on paper of a route is a trade lane average. “It doesn’t tell them what happened to their shipment,” said Komodromos. “That spread isn’t just due to the distance. “The difference is how those voyages were made.”
Utilization is a major efficiency driver
Vessel utilization was found to be one of the strongest predictors of emissions intensity at the voyage level in the analysis.
The most efficient emissions-intensity category of voyages averaged 80% utilization, compared to 31% for the least efficient voyages.
The most efficient voyages also averaged nearly 9,000 TEUs, demonstrating the relationship between cargo utilization and emissions performance.
The results indicate that considering shipping emissions based on fleet or trade-lane averages may not give a complete picture. Differences can be substantial even on broadly comparable routes depending on vessel deployment and utilization, and performance at voyage level.
