Long Beach posts lowest-ever emissions per container on record 9.9m TEU year

The Port of Long Beach recorded its lowest emissions per container in history in 2025, even as terminals handled a record of nearly 9.9 million TEUs — proof, the port argues, that volume growth and decarbonisation can run in parallel.

The 2025 emissions inventory credits three drivers: strategic investment in zero-emissions equipment, greater use of shore power, and more frequent calls by cleaner ships. Against the prior year, diesel particulate matter fell 7%, nitrogen oxides 9%, sulfur oxides 9% and greenhouse gases 6%.

For carriers and shippers routing through the San Pedro Bay complex, the direction of travel matters: the cleanest vessels increasingly get the easiest path, and the incentive structure is about to tighten further.

How deep do the cuts go?

Measured against the 2017 update of the Clean Air Action Plan — adopted jointly with the Port of Los Angeles — diesel particulates are down 13%, nitrogen oxides 34% and sulfur oxides 29%. Greenhouse gases, however, rose 9% over that same period, set against a 31% increase in container throughput. The port frames that as an efficiency gain; a skeptic would note that absolute carbon output still moved the wrong way while cargo surged.

The longer baseline is more flattering. Since 2005 — the 20th anniversary year of the Clean Air Action Plan, and also 20 years since the port adopted its Green Port Policy — diesel soot has fallen 91%, nitrogen oxides 70%, sulfur oxides 98% and greenhouse gases 9%, while throughput grew 47%.

What does the fleet actually look like?

The inventory's equipment-level detail shows where the decarbonisation is real and where it remains thin:

• Trucks of model year 2014 or newer reached a record 95% of the fleet, but only 2% of the drayage fleet were zero-emissions models.
• Use of shore power and emissions-control barges for ships at berth rose 11%.
• Tier III engines — the cleanest available — were fitted on 21% of vessel calls.
• Zero-emissions models made up 21% of cargo-handling equipment.

The drayage figure is the caveat embedded in the headline: near-universal fleet renewal has not yet translated into meaningful zero-tailpipe trucking, and drayage operators face the sharpest capital question of any stakeholder in the port's ecosystem.

What comes next?

To accelerate what the port calls its move toward a carbon-free future, Long Beach will launch four initiatives over the next year:

• A truck utilisation incentive programme to increase use of zero-emissions trucks;
• An enhanced zero-emissions truck voucher programme;
• An update to the Green Ship Incentive Program to attract cleaner vessels;
• Continued work on a zero-emissions infrastructure plan covering cargo-handling equipment, harbour craft and locomotives.

For ocean carriers, the Green Ship Incentive update is the line to watch: the 21% Tier III call share suggests the port has leverage to push cleaner engine standards harder, and operators with older tonnage on transpacific strings may find calling economics shifting against them.

Harbor Commission President Steven Neal said the findings confirm that the port can be a strong jobs engine while protecting the environment.

CEO Dr Noel Hacegaba said the port is focused on building what it calls the Port of the Future — a safe, resilient and zero-emissions port — and that the inventory shows it is on the right track, though more remains to be done.

That concession is the honest reading. Per-container emissions are at an all-time low; absolute greenhouse gases are 9% below 2005 levels after two decades, and the heavy lifting on carbon still lies ahead.