For centuries, ports have functioned as an economic engine, facilitating maritime transport, offering prosperity and social development to the host communities. Ports are gateways for international trade playing a vital role in the world economy, but it is not excluded that port operations can also have adverse effects on the environment. Air and water emissions, marine sediments, noise, waste generation, loss and degradation of terrestrial habitats and changes to marine ecosystems are just some of the leading environmental challenges with port’s operations. Environmental management within port operations has been a rapidly growing trend, with many ports around the world adopting different types of approaches and initiatives to improve ecological performance. Despite that many ports around the world have implemented greening strategies for growth and sustainable development, there are still many other ports that work less than they should do on environmental aspects and on the generation of ‘green ports’. These latter have fallen behind in the development of the theme. Therefore, the work reported here aims at analyzing what the best way to act should be, even starting from the beginning for a port that is not very innovative, in order to pursue the practical and theoretical levels of ‘green port’.
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