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The maritime transport sector causes considerable volumes of emission although a number of measures towards more environmental ship and port operations have been implemented – having considerable impacts on the development of the climate, environment and thereby also on human health. According to current estimates, the worldwide maritime traffic is responsible for about 2-2.5% of the global CO2-Emission which equals about the greenhouse gas emission production of Germany. According to several scenarios this share may rise dramatically in the next decades.
NOx- and SOx-emissions as well as soot/particular matter from ship operations contribute to pollutions of the global ecosystem, for example acidification and eutrophication of oceans and rivers – while on a local level it adds to health hazards in port regions.
Further negative impacts by the maritime sector derive from operating processes of ships, like noise, waste, sewage, ballast water – as well as by dismantling at the end of a ships life.
For this reason numerous regulations and non-binding or voluntary initiatives have been introduced which aim on reductions of these negative impacts and are expected to trigger further measures towards a more sustainable maritime transport.
This development is also displayed in the ISL service spectrum. Hence, we analyse and assess links of economy and environment in relation to existing and upcoming regulative measures as well as alternative approaches with the aim of reducing negative impacts of port and ship operations on the environment – e.g. through introduction of voluntary incentive systems or by modelling and simulations of macro- and micro-economic scenarios.
Shipping and environmental issues
Environmental and climate protection and its closely linked issue of energy efficiency create enormous challenges for the global shipping sector. Essential questions refer for example to reductions of emissions through the use of possible fuel alternatives and its technical realization. Political framework conditions like CO2-Emission reduction and the implementation of regional Emission Control Areas (ECA) for NOx and SOx raise in turn questions on economical impacts.
Therefore, the ISL provides advice about current developments in this field and analyse relevant market developments and forecasts. Moreover, we assess effects of current and future political framework developments on macro-economical and company levels. This includes inter alia modelling, simulations and analyses of modal-split-effects through the implementation of SECAs and NECAs in the Baltic and North Sea, ecomonic impact assessments, prognoses on changes of the fleet due to CO2-Emission regulations or operational investment decisions for technological solutions for emission reduction solutions (for example Scrubber versus MDO).
Based on different databases (e.g. ISL ship engine database, port database, fleet database, ISL-AIS database) and complex simulation models, we simulate and analyse emissions along the entire transport chain including port processes and hinterland transports in respect to a wide range of economic questions.
Ports/port hinterland and environmental issues
The role of environmental sustainability in ports comes more and more into the focus of authorities, companies and the public. Among the most urgent issues with regard to port planning and development are air quality improvement within the port area, reductions of energy consumption and noise emission in both land-and sea operations as well as the provision of an efficient waste management.
Here, the ISL conducted a number of different studies and projects that include analyses of status-quo situations as well as potential impacts from different possible and existing regulative and market-related measures with regard to different environmental issues - supported by macro- and micro-economic methods and tools and assessments of relevant economic impacts.
Current and completed projects for this competence field are shown as references in the lists of projects.
