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Shipping giant Maersk says it's ordered eight vessels to run on carbon-neutral fuel.

With customer demand for greener transportation, Maersk wants to deliver net-zero emissions by 2050 and accelerate the decarbonisation of its fleet.

The Danish company has vowed to only order new vessels which can use carbon-neutral fuel.

The eight vessels will each carry 16,000 containers.

They'll be built by South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries, and are expected to be delivered by early 2024.

The move won't come cheap though, with the ships expected to be 10-15% more expensive at around $175 million each.

They will be fitted with engines which can run on green methanol, produced by using renewable sources such as biomass and solar energy, as well as normal bunker fuel, as there is still not enough carbon-neutral fuel available in the market.

Maersk said the new vessels would result in annual CO2 emissions savings of around 1 million tonnes, or close to a 3% reduction.

Last year Maersk emitted 33 million tonnes of CO2.

With around 90% of world trade transported by sea, global shipping accounts for nearly 3% of the world's CO2 emissions.