Maritime ports play a crucial role in the global economy, facilitating international trade and serving as connection points for the large-scale transportation of goods. Albeit all economic benefits, port activities are also responsible for many environmental impacts, affecting the quality of air, water and soil, damaging the environment and the well-being of local communities. In terms of carbon emissions, many emission sources are directly or indirectly associated with port operations, such as administrative and tenants’ buildings, vehicles, power plants, cargo handling equipment, port craft, ocean-going ships, etc. Hence, the quantification of Green-House Gas (GHG) emissions of ports is an essential step in understanding the most impactful activities in ports and designing reduction strategies to comply with the ambitious target set up by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) of cutting such emissions by 50% until 2050 (compared to 2008 levels).
However, currently, there is not a specific approach for the life cycle analysis of ports. Moreover, ports are complex logistic hubs, with different boundaries and activities, thus making the life cycle assessment of ports’ carbon emissions a very challenging process.
This paper aims to provide a novel life cycle approach for the quantification of direct and indirect carbon emissions of ports, offering customization options regarding emission sources and factors, and fully supported on the Digital Twin (DT) of the port. Moreover, the proposed approach allows quantifying carbon emissions in maritime ports in real-time, allowing to set reference and target values, and establishing a roadmap for decarbonization of port activities and operations. The proposed model is applied to the Port of Sines, Portugal, one of the most important ports in southern Europe.