This survey is part of a project contracted by the European Commission, the “Study on the Capacity for Greening of European Sea Ports”. The project has been contracted to the University of Piraeus, the Erasmus University of Rotterdam and White Research. The project aims to “Identify the factors affecting the capacity for greening of European seaports paired with economic development”. The study will document these environmental effects, the legislation that pertains to them and which effects are not addressed, the impediments in implementing green objectives as well as good practices aiding in achieving so, on behalf of both the authorities and the port sector. Furthermore, it will aid in knowledge sharing and identification of the tools in pursuing green objectives so that other ports can adjust and apply them to their own specificities.
This survey first and foremost focuses on the legal aspects, but also builds the foundations for the subsequent work on best practices in ports. Our consortium will survey a significant number of port stakeholders in EU-27 to investigate their main activities and challenges in implementing legislation or measures of their own accord, and relevant to their individual situation in terms of diverse port governance models, in their work to become more sustainable. In addition, this survey will aid the Consortium in gaining more precise insights from ports, regarding any challenges relating to legislation (EU legislation and national transposition of legislation). The Consortium aims to complement this survey with a focus group to discuss, elaborate and validate relevant survey data. This will help our team formulate a precise overview of the challenges ports face in dealing with legislation and, later during 2023, proceed with providing a robust set of conclusions and recommendations with respect to challenges, opportunities and good practices.
To formulate the main questions, in the core section of this questionnaire, the team leveraged the inputs gathered from the interviews and the legal analysis and it came up with 13 pieces of legislation, considered the most important for the ports sector. Nevertheless, the following pieces of legislation have not been included in this questionnaire due to current ongoing revision of these by the European Commission (if you nevertheless wish to comment on these pieces of legislation, you may do so in the first section of the questionnaire):
- Directive 2003/96/EC of 27 October 2003 restructuring the Community framework for the taxation of energy products and electricity (Energy Taxation Directive, ETD).
- Directive 2008/50/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2008 on ambient air quality and cleaner air for Europe.
- Directive 2014/94/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 October 2014 on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure (Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Directive, AFID).
- Directive (EU) 2018/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2018 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources (Renewable Energy Directive, RED).
We really appreciate your time and effort to fill this survey, it is important for the European Commission and for our efforts of the greening of ports. Any respondent that wishes to, may provide their consent to share examples of best practices of green initiatives in the ports sector and/or for contributing to additional activities of the project. You may add your email address and contact details in the specific section of the questionnaire. Your contact details will remain confidential within the Consortium and will not be shared with the European Commission or anyone else. Findings and data from the survey will be anonymised.