SUSPORT

SUSPORT – SUStainable PORTs is an EU project funded by the Interreg Italy-Croatia cross border cooperation programme, co-financed by the Office for Cooperation with NGOs of the Government of the Republic of Croatia.

The project's main objectives are enhancing the environmental sustainability and energy efficiency of the ports in the Programme area through increased institutional cooperation to create the basis for coordinated and permanent governance in the context of port environmental sustainability and energy efficiency at the cross-border level. Ports of the Programme Area will be able to share best practices and develop common methodologies for environmental sustainability and energy efficiency, which will be tested in the project’s pilot actions.

Ports of the Programme area currently do not have a common model for environmental planning and energy efficiency, and therefore adopt mitigation measures in a non-coordinated way, with a non-homogeneous result in terms of environmental protection.  SUSPORT intends to strengthen the institutional capacity and cross-border governance of the ports of the Programme Area in this sector, enhancing the environmental sustainability and energy efficiency of Maritime transport, which is the most sustainable way of transporting goods from the environmental and energetic point of view. By strengthening the institutional capacity and cross-border governance for the planning of the reduction of the environmental impact and of the emission of greenhouse gases between all ports in the Programme Area, partners will create a long-term cross-border institutional platform for sharing know-how and best practices, and at the same time support competitiveness to improve their connection and integration to the TEN-T corridor, as well as increase cohesion and collaboration at cross-border level. SUSPORT intends to address these  challenges for the first time in the Programme Area by  jointly strengthening institutional and operational capacity building related to the key issue of port environmental sustainability and energy efficiency. Within SUSPORT a cross-border strategy to strengthen port environmental sustainability and energy efficiency will be developed, to which the project partners will commit to in the medium and long term by signing a joint protocol, which will lead to the institutionalization of a permanent cross-border cooperation network. All of the project’s activities will be developed across borders and will involve ports from both the Italian and Croatian side. SUSPORT includes numerous Italian and Croatian ports and institutions. Five Croatian port authorities – Zadar, Split, Ploče, Dubrovnik and Rijeka – along with the Dubrovnik-Neretva County and Intermodal Transport Cluster make up the Croatian partners in the project.

The main expected result of SUSPORT is the enhancement of institutional capacity of the ports in the Programme Area regarding the key issues of environmental sustainability and energy efficiency. The project also aims to achieve the following specific results:
1) Improvement of port competences in the joint planning of environmental sustainability and energy efficiency, as a key condition, to ensure the basis of a long-term change. In particular, a fruitful exchange of experiences and a best practice analysis will provide the personnel of all the ports of the Area with a solid knowledge base to improve their planning skills.
2) Harmonization of policies and actions to strengthen environmental sustainability and port energy efficiency at cross-border level. The preparation of a common model of environmental sustainability and energy efficiency plan will constitute the basis for the standardization of environmental protection measures.
3) Institutionalization of cross-border governance of environmental sustainability and energy efficiency. Thanks to the creation of a permanent cross-border institutional platform through the signing of a joint Protocol, all ports in the Program Area will undertake to apply a common strategy on environmental sustainability and energy efficiency, in a long-term perspective well beyond the end of the project.                                             

 

Project title: SUSPORT – SUStainable PORTs

Programme: 2014 - 2020 Interreg V-A, Italy-Croatia CBC Programme

Total budget:  7.142.000,00 €                           

ERDF funding:  6.070.700,00 €

Project duration: 01.07.2020. - 31.12.2022.

Lead partner: Port Network Authority of the Eastern Adriatic Sea