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HKHKG USMEM
Electronics

Hong Kong to Memphis freight CO2 emissions

One tonne of cargo shipped Hong Kong (HKHKG) to Memphis (USMEM) by sea emits 123.8 kg CO2e well-to-wake at GLEC v3.2 default factors. The same tonne by air emits 11,228.8 kg — roughly 91x the sea number.

Lane noteFedEx World Hub at Memphis handles ~180 daily wide-body cargo movements; Hong Kong is one of its top three origin pairs by tonnage. This is the canonical lane for justifying air freight on time-sensitive electronics and pharma.

Per-tonne CO2e by mode

Sea freight

Container ship 8,000-14,000 TEU

123.8
kg CO2e
Distance
16,500 km
Factor (WTW)
7.5 g CO2e/tkm
Per shipment
1 t × 16,500 km
Factor source
GLEC v3.2 container 8,000-15,000 TEU (Post-Panamax, WTW)

Air freight

Boeing 777F / Boeing 747-8F

11,228.8
kg CO2e
Distance
12,760 km
Factor (WTW)
880 g CO2e/tkm
Per shipment
1 t × 12,760 km
Factor source
GLEC v3.2 dedicated freighter, long-haul (WTW)

Mode comparison

On the Hong Kong to Memphis lane, air freight emits about 91 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 (880 g CO2e/tkm) and a Container ship 8,000-14,000 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 Hong Kong to Memphis?

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.