Development of a system of indicators for sustainable port management
Introduction
Over recent decades maritime incidents have featured among the environmental disasters that have caused most social alarm. These disasters have included spills involving hydrocarbons, toxic substances and shipwrecks. Although sea transport may be globally considered as one of the most environmentally innocuous forms of transport, the magnitude of its activity – large ports, large vessels – makes port activity subject to special precautions to ensure that it adheres to sustainable development conditions. Port policy has a strategic nature, and the construction of large ports is either carried out by state initiative or is state-controlled in the majority of countries. However, the ports operation is usually subject to the highest competitive market rules. Several initiatives have been taken in the area of marine transport and in port activities related with environmental protection. In 1987 the Foundation European pour l’Education Environmental (FEEE), supported by the European Commission, developed the Blue Flag Project within the “European Environmental Year” to implement an environmental management, an eco-label system, and the management of both beaches and marinas. This was an interesting initiative which could be considered as a precedent to both the eco-audit and eco-label systems (FEE, 2005). In 1994, the European Sea Ports Organization created an Environmental Conduct Code for Industrial Ports (Goulielmos, 2000). In 1997, the Amsterdam Port Authority started the Project ECO INFORMATION (Euromagazine, 2003), and in the same year, Rotterdam port began the GREEN AWARD System with the same objective (Green Award, 2001). Since 1997, the Valencia Port Authority (VPA) in Spain has been developing the project ECOPORT (ECOPORT Valencia, 2000) with a view to establishing procedures to implement the Eco-Audit European regulation 1836/1893 in European harbours. The initiative was supported by the European Commission LIFE projects. INDAPORT (IPEC, 2005) has since been initiated (2002–2004) to establish systems of indicators in order to implement a sustainable environmental ports management. The ECOPORTS FOUNDATION finally started its activitties in 2003. In September 2003, ESPO published the new Code of Practice recommending specific environmental practices to improve the environmental ports performance (Darbra et al., 2004).
The European Union Regulation 1836/1893 was enacted in 1993. Industrial sector companies were invited to implement an EMS based on eco-auditing (Environmental Management Auditing Scheme, EMAS) to be included in one European registry. Port installations were excluded from this invitation because they were not industrial companies in the strictest sense. Article 4 of this Regulation only allowed for the possibility of implementing an experimental system of environmental management and of accessing an informal “B-list”. ISO Standard 14001 of 1996 opened the door to EMS implementation for all “organisations” which heightened expectations, albeit without the institutional support that the European Regulation afforded. The complete review and renewal of the Regulation, now known as 671/2001 (EMAS II), has avoided this limitation by allowing any organisation to be included in the list, and it is implicitly backed by ISO Standard 14001. Indeed nowadays in Europe the ISO 14000 standard is considered to be a prerequisite in the certification process enabling organisations to obtain an EMAS.
The 1998 project ECOPORT (“Towards A Sustainable Transport Network”) was led by the Port of Valencia through the cooperation between Valencia Polytechnic University and the IPEC Foundation (Instituto Portuario de Estudios de Investigación); the project was supported by the European Commission LIFE programme. This project established the bases for implementing one EMS based on the European Regulation 1836/1893, which was then in force. Its objective was to create the basic conditions for sustainable European port development and management in accordance with this Regulation. After the EMS had been implemented in the port environment itself, it was necessary to establish the environmental performance control mechanisms which would in turn determine the status and changes of the port environment.
The objective of the project INDAPORT, which manages the research described in the present document, was to design a system of sustainable environmental management indicators for the port authorities to aid the assessment and minimisation of environmental risks. The study, proposal and implementation were carried out by using the Port of Valencia as a base in the first place, with the intention to them being subsequently extended to other Spanish and European ports.
Section snippets
Diagnosis, management and operational control indicators
Standards and regulations are based on the convenience (ISO) or obligation (EMAS) of carrying out an initial environmental diagnosis as a starting point to implement an Environmental Management System (EMS). In general, one organisation undertaking an environmental analysis in an attempt to find and to consider all the variables that determine status, environmental behaviour and temporal development, would prove to be a difficult task as seaports are complex and dynamic entities (Bichou and
Case study and methodology
Although our research is limited to the Port of Valencia as a “case study” in a first instance, it is to be extended and corrected in a second stage by incorporating new information after having analysed other Spanish and European ports. The Port of Valencia is the second most important port in Spain in commercial terms, and it has the leading maritime container traffic in the Western Mediterranean (Puerto de Valencia, www.Valenciaport.com). The volume of containers has reached 1.992.903 TEU,
Discussion of results
The environmental management indicators proposal is a matter that has recently been under repeated discussion by many specialists (EEA, 1999; OECD, 1993, OECD, 2001; CEROI, EU, 2001). The expression from experimental sciences “you can’t know what you can’t measure”, is a comment that is repeatedly quoted when attempting to justify the necessity of measuring in order to achieve a better control and management of activities. The EMSs (ISO 14001 and European Regulation 761/01) are based on the
Conclusions
The objective of this study was to carry out an environmental analysis of port activities with a view to designing a system of sustainable management indicators. Twenty-one corresponding activities have been identified for large industrial ports. Subsequently, the same methodology developed to date may be applied to other Spanish and European ports since the research involved remains open-ended. The study has been developed by using an original system and a methodology, which simultaneously use
Acknowledgement
We would like to thank the following people for their collaboration in the success of the INDAPORT Project: D. Andrés Guerra, Puertos del Estado, D. Federico Torres and D. José Sáez, Autoridad Portuaria de Valencia, D. Juan Luis Doménech, Autoridad Portuaria de Gijón, D. José Alba, Universidad de Oviedo.
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