As the industry leader within towage and emergency response, SVITZER continues to look for opportunities to minimise its environmental footprint. SVITZER’s environmental plan focuses on three elements:
- Fuel efficiency programme
- New tug design
- Alternative fuels
As part of this plan SVITZER set a target for the CO2 emissions of the company to be reduced by 1% each year through the years 2008-2012.
In pursuit of emission reductions, SVITZER has just placed the first order for two environmental friendly tugs. The new tug design incorporates a number of new innovative technologies.
Environmentally safe, financially sound
“We are pleased to be amongst the pioneers of environmental friendly tug design. SVITZER has a long history of putting cutting-edge technologies to commercial use and our ECO-tug design is yet another example of this,” CEO Jesper T. Lok says.
“Whereas the ECO-tug is a more expensive tug to build, we believe that it will be a commercial success and ‘going green’ makes good business sense.”
Tugs of the future
Head of Group New Building, Esben H Grundtvig explains: “Developing a tug for the future, we were given a clear mandate regarding the ECO-tug – apply the latest technology to minimise emissions. It took us two years to optimise the design and I am happy to say that the ECO-tug will make a real difference.
“The new design differs in two significant ways; it is diesel electric; it incorporates SCR (selective catalyst reaction) and particulate filter. This way we expect to reduce fuel consumption and CO2 by some 10% and NOx by 70-80%.”