SMOOTH PORTS - Reducing CO2 Emissions in Ports
Overview
Background & policy context:
Ports have been vital gateways for prosperity and engines for growth over centuries. While they constitute an important economic asset for their regions, they can also have significant negative environmental impacts.
Inefficient road traffic in port areas causing CO2 emissions has been much overlooked in the past It involves a complex network of different stakeholders engaged in various kinds of daily port activities, in particular in the course of transporting goods, operational and clearance procedures – all powered by CO2 intensive fuels.
Optimizing road traffic in port areas and developing strategies for smooth and efficient transport flows has been a crucial challenge for policy makers in order to reduce CO2 emissions. However, in most European regions, structural funds programs or other relevant policy instruments, have neglected to address this problem in the past.
Objectives:
By engaging stakeholders from administration, port related business’ and logistic business’ along the supply chain, SMOOTH PORTS’ aims to reduce CO2 emissions from port-related road traffic by improving regional policy instruments in a holistic manner.
To achieve these aims, SMOOTH PORTS wants to utilise the differences of the project partners’ ports through an exchange of effective tools and best practices. A key focus lies on finding optimal procedures for the clearance of the goods that are so vital for society and commerce – making their processing speedy and avoiding unnecessary burdens on environment and people. A further focus will be on the different approaches regarding Information and Communications Technology solutions for various traffic related port activities as well as on the question what alternative fuels can power port activities in the future.
Based on this, a comparison of the strengths and weaknesses of the respective policy instruments will help to improve the local policy instruments of the partners. This close and joint effort between the different authorities, public institutions and ports will produce a beneficial synergy from which all stakeholders benefit.
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