Although E/S Orcelle may never be built, ideas it embodies continue to receive development attention, such as hull designs for catamaran car carriers which could carry up to 10,000 cars through the widened Panama Canal. As their cargo is relatively light, it would not be difficult to make car carriers wider.

Speaking to journalists in London earlier this month, WWL CEO Arild Iversen said his company gave considerable thought to addressing environmental issues and focussed its attention on concrete actions it could take today, such as building all new vessels to 'Green Passport' standards and retrofitting all of its older vessels to that standard by 2010.

Iversen said the global car carrier industry was currently short of space and was thus not inclined to reduce sailing speeds. But with the cost of bunkers having more than tripled in the last five years and likely to reach $1000 per ton in his view, reducing speed form 20 to 19 knots could effect a 15% reduction in consumption. This is the sort of action he urged the shipping community to unite in undertaking.

WWL consistently puts its commitment to corporate environmental responsibility into practice, at no small cost to itself. WWL has just signed its largest ever deal with Shell Marine Products (SMP) for low sulphur fuel, which will see SMP deliver up to 400,000 tons of product with a yearly average maximum sulphur content of 1.05% for WWL ships bunkering in Gothenburg and Bremerhaven. WWL's tough self imposed environmental policy has prevented 75,500 tons of sulphur dioxide emissions between 2001 and 2006. This 33.6% reduction saves more than the amount of sulphur dioxide that all of London emitted over a similar period. Between 200 and 2006 WWL also reduced fuel consumption per transported unit by 11.5%.

Iversen added that WWL was expanding into environmentally friendly terminal operations. Its newbuilds will all accept shore based power and the company is exploring the possibility of having its own wind turbines within ports to provide green power for 'cold ironing'.