Polish sea ports and the Green Port concept

Abstract

Recently, the focus of action for port authorities has been to find a set of development and investment measures which would, on one hand, ensure the expected technical and organizational conditions for port operations in the future and, on the other hand, incorporate a variety of social and environmental aspects necessary to maintain or improve the quality delivered in these two areas. This set of measures that has been of particular importance to the port industry in the last years is termed the Green Port, as a way of distinguishing it from the previous measures, which were equally intensive but failed to consider the requirements of sustainable growth. The term is used to refer to a port which takes planned investment actions to ensure compliance in all the three areas: economy, society and environment. In Poland, the notion of ‘Green Ports’ is still in its infancy. The purpose of this paper is to present research into sustainable growth awareness and attitudes in Polish ports. The research was carried out with representatives of Polish sea port authorities to allow identifying the actions for the development of green ports and defining the directions to be adopted in the sea ports development strategies.