French shipping company Compagnie de Transport Maritime à la Voile (CTMV) has revealed it is just a month away from delivering its first "green" shipment of wine to Ireland in a 108-year-old sailing ship.
The company said the Kathleen & May schooner will arrive in Dublin on 25 July, carrying more than 12,000 bottles of wine. It calculates that each bottle will have saved 4.9oz of carbon emissions compared to conventional shipping practices.
Frederic Albert, president of Fair Wind Wine, the group of wine makers using the CTMV sailing ships, said that while the use of chartered sailing ships and traditional trade routes might seem like something from "the old days", it represented a "modern and innovative solution to reduce CO2 emissions".
"With oil prices at an all-time high, our company will be able to ship goods at low rates by using sailing ships," he said, adding that the wines selected for the voyage came from vineyards that adhered to sustainable agricultural practices.
CTMV, which announced the plans earlier this year, said that it would also deliver its first shipment of wine to Canada on 9 July and plans to open up routes to Bristol, Copenhagen and Sweden in August.
While CTMV claims to operate Europe's first fleet of commercial merchant sailing ships, its approach is part of a wider trend that has seen a number of shipping operators investigate wind power as a way to cut carbon emissions and reduce soaring fuel costs.
Earlier this year, German shipping firm Beluga tested a new SkySails technology, which works like a large kite and promises to cut fuel consumption by 15 per cent.
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