On 19 October, the European Federation of Inland Ports (EFIP) met for the first time with the Ecorys’ consortium for the study on Greening of Inland Ports.
Green Inland Ports is a study commissioned by the European Commission focussing on the sustainable development of inland ports. The project is going to result in solutions for the implementation and wide-scale roll-out of sustainability tools for TEN-T inland ports, embracing the key role that inland ports have in the realisation of the objectives of the European Green Deal to reduce transport emissions with 90% by 2050.
The study team will organise a total of 10 workshops during the implementation of the project. This workshop in Belgrade was the first meeting of the study team with inland ports from across Europe. A second workshop is going to be organised on the 23 and 24 November when the project is going to be on the agenda of the Danube Ports Days. Furthermore, a total of 4 workshops are scheduled for 2024 and 4 workshops are going to be organised in 2025.
A wide range of topics was discussed during the workshop, including the environmental impact of inland ports, solutions for urban and short-range IWT and digitalisation. The feedback and input from the participants feed into a survey round and in-depth interviews taking place the next couple of months.
The study will develop Environmental and Sustainable Management Systems which will be tested in a selection of 10 inland ports who are willing to be part of the pilot phase of this project. This phase of the project will start late 2024 and has a duration of 8 months. The study team has launched an expression of interest inviting inland ports to be part of the pilot phase.
EFIP in 2019 declared that inland ports have a role to play in Europe’s energy transition. Since then inland ports have been focusing on hydrogen development, on-shore power supply and solving urban logistics challenges.
“Inland ports can enable the green transition. Already they bring together the cleanest forms of transport and serve as leading hinterland transport nodes. More still needs to be done however to realise the European Green Deal. We expect that the results of this study will serve as a support road map which ambitious ports can follow.” says EFIP Director Turi Fiorito.
“We are proud that Ecorys and partners can work with the inland navigation sector in Europe on identifying the factors affecting the sustainable development of inland ports and propose solutions for the implementation of green objectives, paired with economic development of inland ports”. says Ecorys Director Geert Smit.
EFIP brings together nearly 200 inland ports and port authorities in 17 countries of the European Union, Switzerland, Serbia and Ukraine. As Enablers of Green Logistics, inland ports are supporting all low- and zero-emission forms of transport by deploying the relevant infrastructure.
The Green Inland Ports project is implemented by a consortium of Ecorys, CE Delft, Panteia, Planco, EICB, Pro Danube and Erasmus University Rotterdam. The study is commissioned by the European Commission and runs from November 2022 to November 2025.
