Publishing its price list for 2018, the Port of Helsinki announced the opportunity for operators to apply for vessel charge discounts on the basis of reduced environmental impacts.
The discount is available to those who implement measures that reduce vessels’ environmental impacts, such as lowered air emissions, noise reduction while in the harbour, or other investments that improve environmental efficiency.
In particular, a liner traffic vessel can benefit from a maximum discount of 3% on its vessel fee, if it falls into one of the following categories:
- low emissions (based on the vessel’s ESI-certificate score, for example)
- the vessel’s output noise level while in the passenger harbour is below 105 dB (based on confirmed and measured output noise levels while docked)
- the vessel has been the subject of investments or innovations that improve environmental efficiency, energy efficiency or noise abatement, for example (based on a report on the change with calculations/measurements of its impact).
Vessels have had the option to discharge their wastewater at all Port of Helsinki quays for no additional fee since 2008. At the start of 2016, the Port of Helsinki also introduced a price incentive to attract international cruise ships to discharge wastewater at the Port.
The incentive proved effective: in 2016 waste water was discharged into the Port’s systems at almost 90% of all cruise ship visits. These experiences led the Port to expand its price incentives to reduce the environmental impacts of port and maritime operations.
