Kuehne+Nagel’s seaexplorer platform aims to provide transparency, comparability and acts as a step towards a more sustainable future by calculating estimated CO2 emissions within a supply chain. But it is important to know what stands behind CO2 emissions in the ocean.

What does CO2 mean in regard to the ocean?

Often overlooked is the role the oceans play in carbon storage and oxygen production: every second breath we take comes from the ocean.

Apart from generating oxygen, the ocean acts as a huge carbon sink, binding CO2 from the atmosphere.

When the atmospheric carbon concentration goes above a certain level, the ocean starts absorbing it. This is a completely natural and normal process.

However, as the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is rising much faster than in the past, the ocean is absorbing the CO2 at a rate at which it may not be able to sustain for much longer without drastic consequences.

The rapid absorption of carbon is leading to a change in the pH-value of the seas. The official term is “ocean acidification”.

At first glance, ocean acidification only directly affects marine animals that form their own shells and skeletons such as oysters, clams, shrimps and coral reefs. As these marine animals cannot live in these corrosive conditions and their shells dissolve, the populations decline.

This indirectly causes negative impact on a far larger scale:

The animals affected by ocean acidification are mostly at the bottom of the food pyramid. When these populations decline that play key roles in the ocean’s ecosystem, animals above them in the food chain relying on them as an important food source suffer from food scarcity and consequently also experience losses in populations.

Another example of the effect ocean acidification is having on marine populations concerns coral. Coral reefs benefit communities living in coastal regions, as, among other things, they reduce wave power. However, as coral is among one of the species affected by ocean acidification, this natural protection is seizing to exist, making it more likely that extreme weather conditions overwhelm humans living near the sea.

Around 400 million tonnes of krill live in the Southern Ocean - you can even see the swarms from space! However, populations are on the decline.

Making CO2 visible

Kuehne+Nagel’s seaexplorer platform provides transparencies about where the carbon emissions come from on trade lade level and the Malizia – Seaexplorer race yacht measures where those emissions are going to.

Team Malizia adheres to the notion that you cannot manage what you do not measure and therefore collects viable oceanic data that scientists use to better understand the role of the ocean in regard to CO2 absorption and climate change.

With the help of their onboard laboratory, that collects data on CO2, salinity and temperature 24/7 during races across the seas and circumnavigations of the globe, the team has contributed to important scientific papers that map a pathway of global sustainability efforts, such as the IPPC report. 

It is no coincidence that Team Malizia's race yacht is named the Malizia – Seaexplorer, exactly like Kuehne+Nagel’s seaexplorer platform:

This highlights our common belief, that making CO2 visible is of huge importance in understanding and combatting the climate crisis.

This is what unites Kuehne+Nagel and Team Malizia.