A growing number of shipping and retail companies are joining a pledge not to ship products over the Arctic Ocean "if" or "when" man-made global warming melts the polar ice cap.

Many countries are looking to access the NSR, especially Russia, which can cut the transit time between Europe and Asia by nearly 40 percent compared to traditional routes such as the Suez Canal.  But the marine environment is suffering as the ice melts, with fisheries and polar bears particularly impacted.

"Arctic sea ice declined to its second-lowest summer extent on record, covering just 4.15 million square kilometers," the Ocean Conservancy stated.  "This same decline in sea ice has made the polar routes more appealing to shipping companies."

Eight new signatories are now promising to deal in sustainable ocean freight and have signed the Ocean Conservancy’s Arctic Shipping Pledge, in which they vow to forgo shipping goods via the Northern Sea Route (NSR) out of concern for the environment.  The eight are Allbirds, Artizia, Bureo, Hudson Shipping Lines, International Direct Packaging, Kuehne + Nagel, Puma, and Ralph Lauren.  They join Asos, H&M, and Nike, which signed the pledge when it first launched last year.

"The dangers of trans-Arctic shipping routes outweigh all perceived benefits and we cannot ignore the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions from shipping on our ocean," Ocean Conservancy CEO Janis Searles Jones said in a statement.