During the Greenport EcoPorts conference 2008 in Amsterdam policy makers met port staff and companies in the logistic chain to discuss environmental laws and how to put those in practice in ports. Experiences with solutions to implement them, problems and lessons have been exchanged among around 230 experts in sustainability and environment coming from over 30 countries from all over the world. This big number was far more than expected and indicated the success of joining forces between Greenports and EcoPorts.

Stricter limits to reduce the effects of ports and logistics on the environment has been the key issue of the conference. All partners in ports and the supply chain have to redesign their business activities to make them more sustainable. They have to use all of their creativity and knowledge to meet the stricter standards. Many examples of how to meet these targets have been shown. Representatives from governments, ports, shippers and NGO’s showed what actions were already taken and are underway to deal with the new rules.

EcoPorts presented its new closer cooperation with ESPO and the synergies between these organisations in relation to promoting environmental friendly self-regulation by ports. This was further highlighted in a parallel session on the use of management tools (including EcoPorts’ PERS system) and how these tools can be used as an important step to ISO 14001 certification. During the conference ports of Amsterdam, Dublin, Moerdijk, Rotterdam and Thessaloniki received their PERS (re)certification.
 
Participants in the conference exchanged information about priority environmental topics and came to the conclusion that many face the same challenges. This has led to new initiatives and proposals to further cooperate on finding common solutions. A need was shown in several presentations to create standards for environmental performance indicators. Several laws require monitoring of environmental improvements and reporting but without monitoring standards on benchmarking of results is possible. The Dutch State Secretary for Transport and Public, Mrs. Huizinga-Heringa (picture) proposed that EcoPorts would use its knowledge base to develop those standards.

The Environmental Protection Agency of the USA showed an interesting example of cooperation between government and port authorities.

The success of the combination of Greenports and EcoPorts in this conference has led to the decision to continue cooperation in 2009 in Naples.

Caption:
Keynote address from Mrs J C Huizinga-Heringa
Secretary of State, Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management, The Netherlands