Management of Environmental Issues in Port Activities: The Hellenic Caste Study

?t is internationally observed that the environmental questions concerning ports gain continuously the attention of their administrations. This comes as a result of pressures that are mainly exercised from the legislation, the market and the society itself that, as a whole, show continuously higher interest for the environmental issues. It is also a result from factors such as gain of comparative advantages, reduction of operational cost, improvement of port profile, environmental sensitization of leadership. As the various port operations can lead to a variety of environmental and human effects, the need for a firm coexistence of financial development and environmental protection urges ports to the application of sustainable systems, plans and policies. The aim of this paper is to point out the need for an integrated environmental management of ports, to highlight the preconditions for the management of port environmental consequences through the development of appropriate Environmental Management Systems, to summarize and discuss the Hellenic reality concerning this issue and present a set of appropriate procedures and measures which could lead the Hellenic ports to the total environmental management in a cost-effective way.