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AUSYD USLGB
Wine

Sydney to Long Beach freight CO2 emissions

One tonne of cargo shipped Sydney (AUSYD) to Long Beach (USLGB) by sea emits 90 kg CO2e well-to-wake at GLEC v3.2 default factors. The same tonne by air emits 7,356.8 kg — roughly 82x the sea number.

Lane noteSouth Pacific great-circle crossing — typically 17-19 days at sea. Australian beef and wine exports drive reefer demand; the lane runs at lower fill rates than trans-Pacific so per-tkm emissions are 15-20% higher than Shanghai-LA.

Per-tonne CO2e by mode

Sea freight

Container ship 4,000-8,000 TEU

90
kg CO2e
Distance
12,000 km
Factor (WTW)
7.5 g CO2e/tkm
Per shipment
1 t × 12,000 km
Factor source
GLEC v3.2 container 8,000-15,000 TEU (Post-Panamax, WTW)

Air freight

Long-haul belly cargo

7,356.8
kg CO2e
Distance
12,100 km
Factor (WTW)
608 g CO2e/tkm
Per shipment
1 t × 12,100 km
Factor source
GLEC v3.2 long-haul belly cargo allocation (WTW)

Mode comparison

On the Sydney to Long Beach lane, air freight emits about 82 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 (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 Sydney to Long Beach?

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.