A Literature Review of Seaport Decarbonisation: Solution Measures and Roadmap to Net Zero

Abstract

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the literature related to seaport decarbonisation by combining the academic literature with case studies, industrial reports, newsletters, and domain knowledge. Through the literature review, the emission sources at seaports are categorised according to different criteria for better understanding. One of the criteria is the geographic location, which divides the emission sources into four categories. For each emission source category, the emission reduction measures in the literature are categorised into six structured categories including operational measures, technical measures, fuel and energy measures, infrastructural measures, digitalisation measures, and policy and collaboration measures. The first three categories have a direct impact on emission reductions, whereas the last three categories tend to support and facilitate the development and implementation of the first three categories. Representative case studies are selected from the UK ports to discuss their decarbonisation practices and pathways to net zero. We then propose a generic time-phased roadmap for port decarbonisation towards net zero, which divides the solution measures in each category into three phases to show their progressive processes. We explain the dependence relationships of the solution measures in the roadmap and discuss the challenges and opportunities in the implementation of the roadmap. This paper could offer strategic guidelines to port-associated stakeholders to implement emission reduction strategies and transition to net zero from the system perspective.