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ARBUE DEHAM
Soymeal

Buenos Aires to Hamburg freight CO2 emissions

One tonne of cargo shipped Buenos Aires (ARBUE) to Hamburg (DEHAM) by sea emits 92.3 kg CO2e well-to-wake at GLEC v3.2 default factors. The same tonne by air emits 6,992 kg — roughly 76x the sea number.

Lane noteRiver Plate to North Europe — service typically calls at Montevideo and Rio Grande en route. Bulk soybean volumes dwarf containerised cargo by tonnage; the lane carries ~14% of Argentina-EU trade.

Per-tonne CO2e by mode

Sea freight

Container ship 4,000-8,000 TEU + bulk carriers

92.3
kg CO2e
Distance
12,300 km
Factor (WTW)
7.5 g CO2e/tkm
Per shipment
1 t × 12,300 km
Factor source
GLEC v3.2 container 8,000-15,000 TEU (Post-Panamax, WTW)

Air freight

Long-haul belly cargo

6,992
kg CO2e
Distance
11,500 km
Factor (WTW)
608 g CO2e/tkm
Per shipment
1 t × 11,500 km
Factor source
GLEC v3.2 long-haul belly cargo allocation (WTW)

Mode comparison

On the Buenos Aires to Hamburg lane, air freight emits about 76 times more CO2e per tonne than sea freight at GLEC v3.2 defaults. The gap is driven by the WTW factor difference between long-haul belly cargo (608 g CO2e/tkm) and a Container ship 4,000-8,000 TEU + bulk carriers (7.5 g CO2e/tkm), partly offset by the shorter great-circle air routing.

Try this in the calculator

These numbers are GLEC v3.2 defaults at 1 tonne. Change weight, vessel class, or load factor in the calculator and see the per-mode CO2e update under ISO 14083:2023 data quality tiers.

Methodology references

Need primary-data emissions for Buenos Aires to Hamburg?

The EcoFreight API ingests AIS, bunker delivery notes, and shipment manifests to return ISO 14083 Tier 3 primary-data numbers for the same lane. Free tier covers 1,000 calculations per month.