Ecological assessment of port equipment for container terminals

Environmental protection and energy efficiency are important topics for sea port management, which is characterized by long-term investments. To assess the environmental impact of port equipment, we investigate different equipment types with fossil, hybrid and electric drive technologies, in cooperation with our project partner Hamburg Port Consulting (HPC). An ecological assessment of port equipment will support terminal operators who aim to make sustainable investment decisions. We conduct a comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) of different port equipment types including the three above-mentioned drive technologies. Various LCA impact categories, such as climate change, terrestrial acidification and particulate matter formation, were calculated and compared. Thus, we aim to foster a more comprehensive understanding of the environmental performance of port equipment. The results show the contribution of each life cycle phase to the environmental performance of an equipment type within each impact category and thus allow for a comparison of different port equipment types. So far, little comprehensive research exists regarding sustainable port operations. Especially, port operators often lack knowledge about the environmental impact of port processes, whereof it is necessary to provide a good basis to fill in this gap.