GREEN EFFORTS

Title: Green and Effective Operations at Terminals and in Ports

Summary: Existing and upcoming stricter air quality standards and regulations together with the need to reduce energy consumption raise the awareness of ports and terminals to focus on the carbon footprint which is dependent not only on equipment and operations, but also the energy mix and the management of energy consumption. There is also an increasing need to provide carbon footprint calculations to transport service clients, requiring these to calculate and expose their product-related carbon footprint in order to improve their competitive advantage for the companies sustainability reports or because their clients ask for it.

Sea and inland navigation terminals are crucial nodal points within intermodal transport chains. Sustainable freight transport requires integrating the energy consumption and the emissions caused by the terminal operations into overall chain. While some terminals, mainly the bigger ones, have already started to invest into eco-efficient technologies and handling equipment, this is still an outstanding issue for others. The reduction of the CO2 footprint in ports and terminals will only be possible through a cleaner energy mix and through reduced energy consumption.

To achieve this goal, it is necessary to develop understandable, practicable and transparent methods and standards. Such standardization should also provide the basis for policy-making aiming at the reduction of port and terminal carbon footprint and strengthened competitiveness of this industrial sector. The Green EFFORTS project primarily aims at the reduction of energy consumption and a cleaner energy mix at terminals (container, RoRo and inland waterway) to be controlled in a standardized transparent and easy-to-follow way, but will also consider the role of a port authority may play to achieve these goals.

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