Mass Balance Series | Part 3
From Theory to Practice: How Mass Balance Is Being Applied Across Global Logistics
Mass balance has moved beyond theory and is now being applied across global logistics to help organisations reduce supply chain emissions while supporting the transition to lower carbon fuels and technologies. As businesses look for practical ways to address Scope 3 emissions, mass balance and book and claim mechanisms are enabling investment in sustainable solutions long before dedicated infrastructure becomes widely available. Increasingly, these approaches are helping organisations collaborate across complex value chains and create the commercial demand needed to accelerate decarbonisation.
From ambition to implementation
In the first two articles of this series, we explored why businesses are moving beyond traditional carbon offsetting, how mass balance works, and why robust standards are essential to ensure sustainability claims remain credible. The next question is how these principles are being applied in practice.
Across shipping, aviation and logistics, organisations are no longer waiting for fully segregated low carbon supply chains before taking action. Instead, they are adopting mechanisms that allow investment in lower carbon fuels today, while recognising that production capacity, infrastructure and distribution networks will take time to mature.
For many businesses, this represents an important shift in thinking. Rather than delaying progress until the perfect solution exists, organisations are finding ways to reduce emissions using the systems and infrastructure available today.
This approach is particularly important in logistics, where many of the largest emissions sit outside a company’s direct control. Reducing Scope 3 emissions requires collaboration between cargo owners, transport providers, fuel producers and infrastructure operators, with each organisation playing a role in supporting the transition.
DP World and Carbon Insetting
One of the strongest examples of this approach can be seen in the maritime sector.
Earlier this year, DP World launched its Carbon Inset Programme, allowing cargo owners using its UK operations to purchase verified carbon inset credits linked to emissions reductions achieved through lower carbon marine fuels and cleaner port operations.
The significance of the programme extends beyond the emissions savings themselves. It demonstrates how verified accounting frameworks can create commercial demand for lower carbon shipping without requiring every customer to have physical access to alternative fuels.
Rather than allocating sustainable marine fuel to a specific shipment, emissions reductions generated across the wider shipping system are allocated using recognised mass balance principles. The programme combines Unifeeder’s GreenBox platform, Bureau Veritas certification and the 123Carbon registry to ensure sustainability attributes are independently verified, transparently allocated and protected against double counting.
For businesses looking to reduce Scope 3 emissions, this provides a practical opportunity to invest in lower carbon shipping today while supporting the development of the fuels and infrastructure that will underpin tomorrow’s maritime sector.
DP World is not alone. Across the maritime sector, most major shipping lines now offer some form of book and claim or low carbon fuel programme, allowing customers to support the use of alternative marine fuels without relying on those fuels being physically available for every individual shipment.
While the approaches differ between operators, the underlying principle remains the same. Customers purchase the environmental attributes associated with verified lower carbon fuels, helping to create demand that encourages further production and investment.
This is becoming increasingly important because supplies of lower carbon marine fuels remain limited. Rather than waiting until every vessel can operate exclusively on alternative fuels, book and claim systems enable the industry to begin scaling production today while infrastructure continues to develop.
In many ways, these programmes represent an important bridge between today’s operational reality and the lower carbon shipping networks businesses are working towards.
Beyond Shipping
The same principles are being adopted across other parts of the supply chain.
DHL Group has expanded its Sustainable Aviation Fuel book and claim programme, enabling customers to purchase verified emissions reductions linked to sustainable aviation fuel without requiring that fuel to power the specific aircraft transporting their shipment. The approach allows organisations to reduce the carbon footprint of air freight while supporting increased production of sustainable aviation fuel across the aviation sector.
Maersk continues to invest heavily in vessels capable of operating on green methanol, alongside the infrastructure needed to support alternative marine fuels. While the transition will take time, these investments are helping create the market conditions required for lower carbon shipping to become increasingly viable at scale.
Outside logistics, similar principles are being applied across manufacturing and agriculture. Companies including Nestlé are embedding carbon insetting into agricultural supply chains through regenerative farming initiatives, while Microsoft continues to combine investment in high quality carbon removals with programmes designed to reduce emissions throughout its supplier network.
Although these examples span different industries, they all demonstrate the same principle. Rather than relying solely on carbon compensation after emissions have occurred, organisations are increasingly investing in reducing emissions within the systems that support their own operations.
Some critics argue that allocating environmental benefits separately from the physical product risks creating confusion or weakening confidence in sustainability claims. Others point to the need for greater consistency across certification schemes, registries and reporting frameworks as different sectors continue to develop their own approaches. These concerns are valid and highlight why transparency must remain central to the continued development of mass balance.
Businesses need to demonstrate not only that emissions reductions have taken place, but also that the associated environmental attributes have been independently verified, allocated fairly and cannot be claimed more than once. Maintaining that confidence will be essential if these mechanisms are to support long term decarbonisation.
This is also why recognised standards, digital registries and independent certification continue to play such an important role. As the market develops, consistent governance will help ensure businesses can participate with confidence while giving customers, investors and regulators greater trust in the claims being made.
The logistics industry is often characterised by large scale technological innovation, but progress is rarely driven by technology alone. It also depends on the commercial mechanisms that encourage investment and allow new solutions to scale. Mass balance is one of those mechanisms. It does not replace electrification, sustainable fuels or operational efficiency, nor does it remove the need for direct emissions reductions. Instead, it creates a practical way for businesses to support those solutions while the infrastructure needed for fully segregated low carbon supply chains continues to develop.
As more organisations begin embedding these approaches into their sustainability strategies, mass balance is becoming more than an accounting framework. It is helping create the market conditions needed to accelerate investment, encourage collaboration and support the transition towards lower carbon supply chains.
In the final article of this series, we’ll explore why the conversation around mass balance needs to change, and why it should be viewed not as a shortcut, but as a practical transition mechanism that enables meaningful progress today while laying the foundations for tomorrow’s decarbonised logistics system.