Napier Port, Shadow Emissions Price in Procurement and Business Cases
Napier Port Holdings Limited operates the port of Napier in New Zealand. It publishes an annual climate-related disclosure report (Napier Port, 2025). The port is committed to reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and has set 2022 as its emissions baseline year. It states that it cannot yet set realistic short- or medium-term reduction targets, because progress depends on technology and cost barriers being removed (Napier Port, 2025). To test investment choices against future carbon costs, it applies an internal shadow emissions price.
Approach
Shadow price in business cases. Napier Port uses an internal shadow emissions price per tonne of CO2e in emission scenario and financial analysis when it assesses procurement and business case opportunities (Napier Port, 2025).
Price linked to a national reference. The central base price follows the central carbon shadow price developed by the New Zealand Treasury: NZD 101 per tCO2e in 2025, NZD 100 in 2024 and NZD 96 in 2023. The port notes the price may be varied depending on the analysis (Napier Port, 2025).
Lower emission equipment at a cost premium. In 2025 the port added five Eco Reachstackers to its container handling fleet. Each carries a capital cost premium of about 15 percent over the base model reachstacker (Napier Port, 2025).
Electric horizontal transport. In 2025 the port began a container terminal transformation project that introduces battery electric autonomous trucks and trailers for horizontal transport. Completion is expected in 2027 (Napier Port, 2025).
Board oversight. The Board's Health, Safety and Sustainability Committee reviews a Climate Change Risk Assessment each year. The General Manager, Assets and Infrastructure is responsible for the sustainability strategy and reports progress to that committee (Napier Port, 2025).
Transferability
DMC ports can adopt a shadow carbon price without waiting for a national carbon market. Linking the price to a published government or multilateral reference value keeps it transparent and easy to update each year.
Applying it in both procurement and business cases lets higher cost, lower emission equipment be compared on a whole of life basis. Disclosing the price and where it is used in an annual climate report supports lender and investor review.
Sources
All information used for this case study was based on publicly available resources.