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Authors: Martí Puig, Chris Wooldridge, Rosa Mari Darbra, Tim Verhoeven
This report continues to serve as a key instrument for monitoring environmental progress and performance across the port sector, offering insights into trends, challenges, and opportunities in sustainable port development. The Environmental Report builds on data collected through the EcoPorts Self-Diagnosis Method (SDM), a key pillar of the EcoPorts Network. The SDM remains a widely recognised tool that enables ports to assess their environmental management frameworks, benchmark their practices, and progress toward certification under the Port Environmental Review System (PERS), the only International Quality Standard of Environmental Management System (EMS) dedicated to the port sector. Since its launch in 1997, EcoPorts has played an important role in shaping environmental management in the port sector. In its early years, the initiative was primarily driven by voluntary action, with ports proactively sharing best practices and implementing improvements beyond regulatory requirements. Today, European regulation has significantly evolved, and ports dedicate considerable time and resources to ensuring compliance with an increasingly complex legislative framework. The experience and tools developed within EcoPorts continue to support ports in meeting these challenges, helping them to combine compliance with innovation and continuous improvement.
Authors: Water Research Foundation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Austin Water
The goal of this project was to define a cogent methodology to estimate commercial, institutional, and industrial (CII) end uses of water and develop analytical elements of a “standard of practice” for characterizing water use in the CII sector. This study established data requirements and recommended practices to meet common CII sector planning and evaluation objectives, such as demand forecasting, efficiency program development, and water use benchmarking. Rather than deriving national baseline information about the CII sector, this study emphasized methodological development. The study achieved key objectives that will support future research: (1) Identified categories (or classes) of CII users that are broadly representative of the customer types present in most water utility service areas, (2) Developed data collection methods for differentiating among the range of end uses present and property attributes among these CII facilities and groupings (3) Illustrated the design of alternative “rate-of-use” metrics that capture and describe the water uses at CII establishments or categories of CII users. Information that can be used to classify and characterize water use by CII categories or by end use and purpose is typically not readily available within a utility’s billing system, and thus external sources of information are often required. Although some have practiced direct end use measurement (i.e., sub-metering of specific water end uses such as cooling, irrigation, and process water) in the CII sector, the operating assumption for this project was that direct measurement is likely to be cost prohibitive, except for special cases or evaluations. The general lack of direct end use measurement and the inherent variability associated with CII water use drove the development of recommended research practices, which rely on indirect methods for inferring and evaluating CII end uses. This study describes a methodological process and an analytical framework that can be considered by water utilities who want to evaluate and learn ore about water use in the CII sector in their service areas.
Authors: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is charged by Congress with protecting the Nation's land, air, and water resources. Under a mandate of national environmental laws, the Agency strives to formulate and implement actions leading to a compatible balance between human activities and the ability of natural systems to support and nurture life. To meet this mandate, EPA's research program is providing data and technical support for solving environmental problems today and building a science knowledge base necessary to manage our ecological resources wisely, understand how pollutants affect our health, and prevent or reduce environmental risks in the future. The National Risk Management Research Laboratory (NRMRL) is the Agency's center for investigation of technological and management approaches for preventing and reducing risks from pollution that threaten human health and the environment. The focus of the Laboratory's research program is on methods and their cost-effectiveness for prevention and control of pollution to air, land, water, and subsurface resources; protection of water quality in public water systems; remediation of contaminated sites, sediments and ground water; prevention and control of indoor air pollution; and restoration of ecosystems. NRMRL collaborates with both public and private sector partners to foster technologies that reduce the cost of compliance and to anticipate emerging problems. NRMRL's research provides solutions to environmental problems by: developing and promoting technologies that protect and improve the environment; advancing scientific and engineering information to support regulatory and policy decisions; and providing the technical support and information transfer to ensure implementation of environmental regulations and strategies at the national, state, and community levels. This publication has been produced as part of the Laboratory's strategic long-term research plan. It is published and made available by EPA's Office of Research and Development to assist the user community and to link researchers with their clients.
Authors: Barbara Wallace, James M. Coe
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is charged by Congress with protecting the Nation's land, air, and water resources. Under a mandate of national environmental laws, the Agency strives to formulate and implement actions leading to a compatible balance between human activities and the ability of natural systems to support and nurture life. To meet this mandate, EPA's research program is providing data and technical support for solving environmental problems today and building a science knowledge base necessary to manage our ecological resources wisely, understand how pollutants affect our health, and prevent or reduce environmental risks in the future. The National Risk Management Research Laboratory (NRMRL) is the Agency's center for investigation of technological and management approaches for preventing and reducing risks from pollution that threaten human health and the environment. The focus of the Laboratory's research program is on methods and their cost-effectiveness for prevention and control of pollution to air, land, water, and subsurface resources; protection of water quality in public water systems; remediation of contaminated sites, sediments and ground water; prevention and control of indoor air pollution; and restoration of ecosystems. NRMRL collaborates with both public and private sector partners to foster technologies that reduce the cost of compliance and to anticipate emerging problems. NRMRL's research provides solutions to environmental problems by: developing and promoting technologies that protect and improve the environment; advancing scientific and engineering information to support regulatory and policy decisions; and providing the technical support and information transfer to ensure implementation of environmental regulations and strategies at the national, state, and community levels. This publication has been produced as part of the Laboratory's strategic long-term research plan. It is published and made available by EPA's Office of Research and Development to assist the user community and to link researchers with their clients.
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