Hamburg to Charleston freight CO2 emissions

Name: EcoFreight Freight Emissions API
Brand: EcoFreight
Availability: InStock

One tonne of cargo shipped Hamburg (DEHAM) to Charleston (USCHS) by sea emits 55.5 kg CO₂e well-to-wake at GLEC v3.2 default factors. The same tonne by air emits 4,377.6 kg — roughly 79x the sea number.

Lane noteCharleston runs as the BMW Spartanburg export hub and a major Mercedes import port. Trans-Atlantic vessels here are slightly larger than Rotterdam-NY because of the ro-ro and project-cargo overlap.

Per-tonne CO₂e by mode

Sea freight

Container ship 6,000-10,000 TEU

55.5

kg CO₂e

Distance: 7,400 km
Factor (WTW): 7.5 g CO₂e/tkm
Per shipment: 1 t × 7,400 km
Factor source: GLEC v3.2 container 8,000-15,000 TEU (Post-Panamax, WTW)

Air freight

Long-haul belly cargo

4,377.6

kg CO₂e

Distance: 7,200 km
Factor (WTW): 608 g CO₂e/tkm
Per shipment: 1 t × 7,200 km
Factor source: GLEC v3.2 long-haul belly cargo allocation (WTW)

Mode comparison

On the Hamburg to Charleston lane, air freight emits about 79 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 6,000-10,000 TEU (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 Hamburg to Charleston?

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.

Per-tonne CO2e by mode