SPICES - Taking Ports and Cities Further
on the Sustanability Path

In the project application SPICES - Supporting port innovations and cities enhancing sustainability, proposed to the Baltic Sea Region Programme, 19 partners representing ports, cities, research institutions and UBC will cooperate to find ways to take action making the ports and harbor cities more sustainable. SPICES will continue the project "New Hansa for sustainable ports and cities" (New Hansa).

Exchange of experiences and Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Sustainable Port and Maritime Policy in the BSR were the main outcomes of the New Hansa project.

Although only a few years have passed, a lot has happened regarding sustainability and port management. The Blue Book laying out the maritime policy framework for ports in EU has been launched, HELCOM has published anambitious Baltic Sea Action Plan and a new EU Baltic Sea Strategy is on its way. And not only the policy framework is changing: the environmental challenges like climate change, water management and land use issues are growing challenges in the ports and harbor cities.

In the SPICES project cities and ports will investigate the possibility to transfer a good practice from one port/ harbor city to another. In an extension phase the practices will actually be transferred and implemented in the new setting. The good practices will be carefully evaluated on their environmental, economical and social qualities and impacts and regarding their transferability to other settings. Apart from implemented actions the project will deliver guide books on how to use transfer of good practices as a mean to speed up implementation of a sustainable management of ports and harbor cities. The project will continue on the MoU developed in New Hansa and make a Transnational Action Plan for ports and cities that can be committed to by actors in the field.