Taking Steps Toward a Sustainable Footprint

Sustainability is the way of the future, but it is also a reality of the now. From fuel options to water standards to air quality, ports and their tenants and partners are making big strides on figuring out the best ways to achieve a more sustainable footprint.

By Candace Gibson

Here’s an unlikely scenario: Your port has ample budget to implement important sustainability measures. Your tenants, community and other stakeholders understand the need to green up port business, and they’re all willing to sacrifice their needs for the greater good. What’s more, you just learned of new technologies that will help your port accomplish its goals within the next two quarters.

Of course, this isn’t reality. Making strides toward sustainable port operations takes a lot of money, collaboration and time.

There’s good news, though. Ports, tenants and their partners agree that cleaning up the business is a marathon, not a sprint. No one passes the finish line in 500 meters; it takes a thorough assessment of operations to identify a port’s biggest environmental offenses. Then, it takes strategic planning to develop short- and long-term goals to operate more sustainably. A port must make difficult decisions about allocating resources toward these goals, and must communicate its successes to stakeholders when it reaches a benchmark.

All of this in addition to normal operations? Well, yes. But you don’t have to innovate in a vacuum. Insights from industry experts at Dewberry, Green Marine, HUG Engineering and Moffat & Nichol reveal there are practical ways to start working toward a sustainable future today, no running shoes required.

Immediate Actions

HUG Engineering’s Dana Brewster, regional sales manager-marine; Joel Martin, vice president of sales America; and Nicole Wagner, marketing coordinator, speak to the power of the relationship between a port and an emission reduction company. A port can submit a comprehensive list of its diesel-powered equipment and learn what pieces can be retrofitted with emission-reduction devices and at what cost. They explained that the evaluation process is free in most cases and that a port can take its necessary time to find budget or pursue grant funding to assist with the cost of retrofit conversions.

Representing Dewberry, Rachel Vandenberg, P.E., senior vice president and national director, ports and intermodal and Heather Wood, regional director, ports and intermodal, emphasize the importance of optimizing terminal operations within layout and cargo flows. Acknowledging that new systems require time for implementation and industry cooperation, they point out that efficient movements within a port reduce idling, queuing and unnecessary handling that contribute to emissions.

Lynette Cardoch, director, resilience and adaptation at Moffat & Nichol, also speaks to the significance of streamlining port movements. “Air quality can be improved by implementing anti-idling policies along with associated gate-entry improvements,” she said. “This reduces excess emissions of particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides and carbon monoxide and dioxide.” Cardoch pointed out that another short-term, low-cost strategy is leveraging environmental education to inform tenants, contractors and clients about the impact of spill control and stormwater routing.

Long-term Planning

With sufficient resources and time, ports can make an even bigger impact toward reaching their sustainability goals. David Bolduc, executive director, and Manon Lanthier, communications manager, of Green Marine explain how their voluntary environmental certification program has helped their 47 U.S. and Canadian port clients excel beyond baseline compliance. Prioritizing sustainability initiatives, they said, is a directive that must come from senior management and from a collaborative approach with users, tenants and other stakeholders. Green Marine’s own criteria is the result of a collaboration among governmental agencies, academics, NGOs and environmental groups, so they see a port’s goal-setting as a natural extension of this “hand-in-hand, joint process” thinking.

How much more can be accomplished with stakeholder consensus? This isn’t always a quick and easy feat. Imagine, for instance, the response to a deadline for every port tenant to replace noncompliant equipment. “Equipment replacement is typically the most expensive option to pursue. Alternative fuel-powered equipment is an option, but in most cases is more expensive than diesel-powered equipment and in some instances requires an investment in infrastructure changes, such as adding electrical plug-in stations or CNG/LNG fueling stations,” said the HUG representatives.

Cardoch proposed another solution to reduce diesel emissions: shore power, or “cold ironing.” “The term comes from the historic shipping industry when early ships had iron-clad, coal-fired engines,” she explained. “When these ships were berthed at port, the iron-clad engines would be shut down and become cold.” Ships in port typically rely on diesel generators for power, but shore power could be “provided by a variety of sources, including renewables or gas that produce fewer greenhouse gases.”

Cardoch pointed out that another benefit to cold ironing is noise reduction. Dewberry seconded this approach to “shore-power infrastructure [changes] for vessel hotel power.” Beyond a fundamental change in berthing practices, Dewberry’s experts also recommend replacing cargo-handling equipment with net-zero/electric engine technology and expanding on-dock rail capacity so that cargo can move more efficiently without idling.

Applicable to All

No port is exempt from improving its environmental footprint. In addition to becoming good environmental stewards for the sake of maintaining current business and capturing new business, ports should be invested in environmental issues because they affect port employees and people who live nearby.

It’s a fact: Regular port business takes a toll on the environment. HUG representatives pointed it out succinctly: “All ports will impact the environment in some capacity.” Citing the U.S. EPA, HUG said that diesel combustion’s primary byproducts are known to negatively affect air quality and human, animal and marine life. Consider a port’s daily operations – the number of vessels, cranes, trucks and trains contributing constantly to emissions. Quite simply, turning off an engine makes a huge difference. For engines that must idle in port, it’s important that they’re maintained routinely.

However, emissions aren’t the only environmental offender. Green Marine’s certification program includes a necessary assessment of greenhouse gases but looks beyond those pollutants into an examination of invasive aquatic organisms and pathogens resulting from ballast water discharge, and among its other certification points aims to “reduce the amount of noise, dust, odor and light to which people residing close to port facilities are exposed.”

Dewberry helpfully lists common port impacts with pragmatic ways to address each. Stormwater runoff is a risk, but it can be minimized or even eliminated through stormwater controls. Likewise, spills from vessel and cargo operations are a constant threat, but the effects can be minimized through response training and through proper equipment maintenance, Dewberry said.

Prioritizing Sustainability

We’ve seen recommendations for short- and long-term actions to help ports make strides toward a greener environment. We’ve also seen that the business of ports takes a toll on the environment, but that extensive negative impacts can be alleviated through thoughtful practices – as long as all stakeholders are willing to collaborate.

The best way to implement new sustainability strategies without introducing sudden major costs or interruptions to business is to have sustainability roadmaps that include a variety of short-, mid- and long-term goals. “A simple short-term goal is to retire an old piece of equipment that is a heavy soot producer, or retrofit a heavy soot producer that will be in the port’s inventory for the next three plus years,” HUG experts said. HUG also advised awarding contracts to companies that can demonstrate they will be partners in helping your port achieve sustainability goals.

Working with a partner that can assist with setting goals and providing honest assessment of the current state of affairs is also a major boon to ports. The Green Marine certification is just one example of programs available to help ports quantify and outline their sustainability goals. “Taking part in Green Marine, is in our eyes, a concrete action a port can take to improve its environmental performance and reduce its footprint,” said Lanthier. The important components of the program include benchmarking performance and identifying the actions needed to address the port’s unique issues.

Cardoch asserts that prioritizing sustainability in a port’s strategic vision stands to benefit the port in other ways. Reframe your port’s sustainability goals in terms of learning to become more efficient with given resources. “Sustainability initiatives also lead to a more resilient port,” she said “If sustainability is thought of as resource efficiencies and resiliency as adaptive capacities, initiatives that support the ability for the port to be more efficient with resources allow the port to invest in areas that can increase adaptive capacity.” Ports that can adapt to changing environmental regulations will learn to be adaptable in other scenarios, too, such as new financial strains or emergencies.

As ports are faced with the very necessary – and sometimes daunting – goal of operating more sustainably, they can certainly be comforted by the knowledge that their peers face the same challenges and that everyone begins with small steps.

Source: seaportsmag-digital.com