At a windy port in Elizabeth, New Jersey in late April, Andy and Sara Kubiak watched in awe as two large cranes unloaded their cargo — 10,000 pounds of Madagascar vanilla beans — pallet by pallet.
Newark Bay was dotted with a few cargo ships that morning, colorful from their stacks of shipping containers. But the Kubiaks were zeroed in on a much smaller vessel: The Grain de Sail II, a modern cargo sailboat.
It’s been 7 years since the Kubiaks launched the Vanilla Bean Project, their Minnesota-based organic vanilla company. Over the years, the husband-and-wife have ordered plenty of vanilla from Madagascar. But this shipment was special: After a year of planning, their raw materials had finally crossed the Atlantic Ocean by commercial sail-cargo boat, propelled almost entirely by wind.
“Today, I think for the first time, we let our hair down a little bit,” Andy said. “As opposed to always doing and acting, being in the moment and solving problems, we got to look and say, we did something good.”
Sara and Andy Kubiak in front of the Grain de Sail II, a cargo vessel powered almost entirely by wind. (Photo by Ella Feldman)
Around 11 billion tons of goods are transported by ship each year, according to the International Chamber of Shipping, nearly all of it on ships powered by fossil fuels. Those ships, which include oil tankers, bulk carriers, general cargo ships and container ships, emit roughly 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions annually, about as much as all of South America.
Now, certain shipbuilders and businesses are looking for a way to break the industry’s reliance on fossil fuels. To do so, some are turning to an ancient energy source: wind.
Across the globe, a number of research groups are developing wind technology for large cargo ships, and a handful of companies have already begun harnessing wind to make lower-emission voyages. But it remains to be seen whether wind-powered technology will ripple throughout the $16.7 billion shipping industry, or whether such vessels will remain a niche method of cargo transportation for the environmentally-minded.
Near the Grain de Sail II, a container ship unloads cargo on Newark Bay. (Photo by Ella Feldman)
The concept of a global trade system powered by wind isn’t exactly new. Sailboats used to be the only way to conduct international trade, but they were phased out about a century ago as steam-powered vessels came to dominate the market.
Today’s globalized economy is built on diesel-powered cargo shipping, which has made it possible for goods to move through complex supply chains at a historically low cost. Some experts estimate that 80% of the world’s goods move by sea.
Converting even a meaningful fraction of that trade to wind power would be a time-consuming and expensive process, said Liang Wu, a visiting assistant anthropology professor at Bates College who studies maritime trade.
“For any kind of revolution to happen, like technological return, in a way, I feel like there needs to be some kind of earth-shaking incident or rationale,” Wu said.
But a niche sector of companies, mostly clustered in Europe, have found their earth-shaking rationale: climate change. The International Windship Association, a trade association for wind-powered vessels, has over 100 organizations listed as members. Many of them are entirely devoted to incorporating wind power into the shipping industry to combat greenhouse gas emissions, mostly through wind-propelled sails designed to be retrofitted onto existing, fuel-powered vessels.
There’s California’s Wind+Wing Technologies, which says it can reduce around 40% of emissions through its wind-assisted wings. There’s the United Kingdom’s Smart Green Shipping, which also promises to reduce a bulk vessel’s carbon footprint by 40%.
Most wind-propelled cargo research is concentrated in Europe. In April, the U.S. government withdrew from international negotiations about eliminating carbon emissions in maritime trade. (Photos by Ella Feldman)
And then there’s Grain de Sail, the French shipping company that brought the Kubiaks’ vanilla, along with wine, chocolate, perfume and other luxury goods from France, across the Atlantic. Every time one of their ships moves goods, the company reports, it emits around 90% less greenhouse gasses than a standard shipping vessel.
Unlike companies that manufacture wind-assisted add-ons for existing vessels, Grain de Sail builds their sailboats from scratch. Their vessels are also outfitted with fuel-powered engines, which are tapped to maneuver in and out of ports, and if necessary for the safety of the crew due to bad weather conditions. (That usually means big waves but no wind, a company representative said.) On board, Grain de Sail sources electricity from small wind turbines, solar panels and hydro generators.
Large cranes, fixed onto the Grain de Sail II, are used to unload cargo. (Photos by Ella Feldman)
The company’s large emission reduction comes with a caveat: They’re building one ship at a time, due to the cost and complexity of building a low-carbon vessel, and their ships have a miniscule cargo capacity compared to container ships. The Grain de Sail II, which the Kubiaks watched dock in Elizabeth last month, has the capacity to carry 350 tons of cargo. The company is currently building its third ship, which they plan to launch at the end of 2027, with the ability to carry about 2,800 tons of cargo. A standard containerized shipping vessel, meanwhile, can transport over 200,000 tons of stuff across an ocean.
It costs about twice as much to manufacture a wind-powered sailboat versus a fuel-powered ship of the same loading capacity, Jacques Barreau, who co-founded Grain de Sail with his brother, said.
“Another way to say it: An organic carrot will always be more expensive than a conventional carrot,” Barreau said. “When you want to take care about the environment, it’s more expensive.”
Grain de Sail, a play on the French for “grain of salt,” will continue to expand its shipping fleet, but Barreau is not under any illusion that international maritime trade will be able to transfer over entirely to ships like theirs, he said. His main goals are to help environmentally-minded companies and consumers eliminate their carbon footprints, as well as to show the world that shipping specialty products by wind is possible for companies.
“We pay our bills, we pay the people, we pay taxes and so on—it’s just a normal company,” Barreau said. “But the way we develop this company is much more compatible and sustainable with the environment.”
After a 27-day journey at sea, French crew members indulged in an American rite of passage: fried chicken. (Photo by Ella Feldman)
International pressure for shipping companies to turn to renewable energy is mounting. Last month, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), a United Nations agency, outlined a legally-binding plan to achieve net-zero emissions within the global shipping industry by 2050. The agreement, which outlines mandatory emissions limits and carbon pricing, is expected to be approved in October and go into effect in 2027.
Facing potential financial consequences, shipping companies are now exploring alternative fuels, electrified ships and wind-powered assistance. Under the proposed carbon pricing system, carbon offsets — an opaque industry that many experts see as a “greenwashing” tactic — would not help shippers avoid the tax. They would need to find a way to actually reduce emissions from their ships.
The U.S. is resisting international pressure to decarbonize the shipping industry. President Donald Trump’s administration withdrew the country from the IMO negotiations, telling the agency that it would not support an agreement that “unduly or unfairly burdens the U.S.,” per a document acquired by Reuters. In the document, the Trump administration threatened to impose “reciprocal measures” to offset any carbon taxes charged to American vessels, echoing Trump’s reasoning for universal tariffs and in line with his dismissive attitude toward climate change.
Even as Trump pulls the country back from climate policy, some states are pushing ahead. The Vanilla Bean Project sells its organic extract to clients across the country, including in California. Two years ago, California lawmakers passed a law requiring large businesses to publicly disclose their greenhouse gas emissions starting next year. The couple learned about the legislation in 2023, which inspired them to set out to decarbonize the entire supply chain of their vanilla beans, from Madagascar to Minnesota.
“ I knew that we were coming into a space in the next couple years where I may as well figure this out now, because I’m gonna be forced to figure this out in the future,” Andy Kubiak said.
Importing vanilla beans via sailboat cuts a significant amount of carbon emissions out of their supply chain, the Kubiaks said, but they want to go further. The couple has invested in Windcoop, a French company in the process of building a wind-assisted cargo ship that will be able to transport the beans from Madagascar to France, where the Grain de Sail II departs. They’re betting that zero-emission trucks, which are currently expensive and niche, will become accessible in coming years and available to move the beans from New Jersey to Minnesota. And they’re in the process of moving into a new production facility powered primarily by solar panels. With all these changes, they hope to manufacture the lowest-emission available vanilla extract available on the global market.
The work is expensive and time-consuming, but the Kubiaks believe it will pay off for their environmentally-minded customer base — and for the planet. Given that most of the world’s vanilla comes from one country, Andy Kubiak thinks it’s feasible that one day, the entire global market for the beloved spice could emit a negligible amount of greenhouse gasses.
“Is that going to happen? Well, these people are going to go kicking and screaming. They don’t want to change,” Kubiak said. “But you still have to think like that.”