Applying Environmental Management Systems in European Ports: Application of Port-Environmental Review System in Ports of Piraeus and Thessaloniki, Greece.

Many ports nowadays seek to correspond timely to the new global trend: the integration of the environmental protection and sustainable principles into a port authority's daily operation. Environmental Management Systems (EMS), such as EMAS or ISO 14001 offer a formal way to manage the environmental duties and responsibilities of a port, by incorporating the environmental considerations into day-to-day activities and providing a structured framework for continual environmental improvement. Today, Europe-wide, many port administrations are applying some form of environmental management system, in order to encourage a constant route to the right direction and to ensure, in parallel, an effective resources investment for the environment. PERS (Port Environmental Review System) is an environmental system focusing exclusively in the port sector and defines a basic standard of good practice for the port administration. PERS was jointly published by the European Sea Ports Organization (ESPO) and the ECOPORTS Foundation and supports the individual efforts of ports to achieve high environmental standards through self-regulation. The two major Greek ports have already been certified according to PERS system, i.e. the port of Thessaloniki, which was certified in year 2003, and the Piraeus port, which was certified in year 2004. In this paper, initially, the driving forces for applying an EMS in seaports are examined, next, experiences gained by ports applying an EMS and current trends in Europe are discussed. Finally, the experiences, obstacles and results by the application of PERS environmental system in the two major Greek ports are presented.