Integration of safety into a comprehensive sustainability indicator for Ports: Case study of the medium-sized Port of Aveiro

Ports are strategic infrastructures essential to global supply chains, whose rapid growth has intensified environmental and social pressures such as increased pollution, resource depletion, and safety challenges, with port areas recording the highest number of marine accidents in Europe. The need to minimize environmental externalities while fostering economic growth and social well-being defines the concept of port sustainability. Key Performance Indicators and composite indices are fundamental tools for assessing and monitoring sustainability performance across sectors, including ports. However, the literature lacks common standards and metrics that allow a reliable assessment of port activities and their impacts, as well as indicators integrating the different dimensions of sustainability into a unified framework. This thesis aims to address this gap by proposing a methodology to obtain an overall sustainability indicator that also incorporates safety. The method is designed to be generalizable, applicable to any port even when only limited data are available, avoiding expert involvement to reduce subjectivity and excluding port-to-port comparisons, which would require extensive datasets. Based on a review of literature and regulations, six main parameters were identified to assess port sustainability: air and water quality, noise level, environmental efficiency of transport systems, energy efficiency, and safety. The aggregation method builds on an existing approach. A rating system quantifies performance of the selected measures against associated targets based on regulatory prescriptions, EU objectives, and statistics. Scores range from full compliance (5) to non-compliance (1). Individual scores are then aggregated linearly, assigning equal weight to each parameter. Air quality evaluation is based on the Air Quality Index of APA, the Portuguese Environment Agency, which considers PM10, PM2.5, NO2, O3, and SO2 daily concentrations. Water quality is assessed using the CCME (Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment) index, which accounts for the percentage of parameters exceeding limit values. Noise level evaluation relies on legal limits and a study classifying noise levels by their health effects. Environmental efficiency of transport systems assessment is based on the EU target of a 90% reduction in transport emissions by 2050 (relative to 1990) and evaluates the annual variation in the ratio between GHG emissions and cargo. For energy efficiency and safety, statistics from EU countries provided by Eurostat and Ilostat were used, and the evaluation classes were created based on percentiles. In particular, for energy efficiency, the ratio between the energy produced in the port from renewable sources and the total energy used by the port was considered, while for safety, the indicators taken into account were fatal / non-fatal accidents, and workdays lost due to injuries. The methodology was applied to a case study using real data from the Port of Aveiro, a medium-sized port in the Centre region of Portugal. The aim was to evaluate the parameters for 2022, 2023, and 2024 and compare their trends. Due to missing data, it was not possible to calculate the overall sustainability score in every year. Nevertheless, the available parameter scores are generally high, indicating good overall sustainability performance. For parameters with multi-year data, the scores either remained stable or improved over time. This thesis highlights the importance of consistent sustainability reporting in ports and the need for frameworks adopting common standards and metrics to ensure reliable assessment of port activities and their impacts. Future research should focus on developing universal assessment methodologies and creating aggregated sustainability indices to enable clearer and more comparable evaluations across ports.