Estonian Port Offers Discounts to Green Ships

Estonian port authority Tallinna Sadam (Port of Tallinn) announced that starting from next year the ships that have joined the Environmental Ship Index (ESI) can apply for discount on tonnage fees of up to 8%.

The Baltic Sea port said in a press release that the new port pricing system involving differentiated port fees is aimed at encouraging shipping companies to adopt environmentally friendlier technologies and thus also contribute to the health of Baltic Sea ecosystem.

The head of the port company's department for quality and environmental management Ellen Kaasik was quoted in the press release as saying. "As a port, with this discount on tonnage fees, we wish to encourage shipping companies to further contribute to sustainable solutions and thus to protecting the sensitive ecosystem of the Baltic Sea."

According to Margus Vihman, the CCO and Member of the Management Board of the Port of Tallinn, an equally important consideration in differentiating the fees on the basis of environmental performance is the impact such measure will have on the local communities.
 
“The Port of Tallinn as a socially responsible company views environmental protection as one of the pillars of our business. And motivating our partners in the shipping industry to contribute to reducing air pollution will undoubtedly have a positive impact on the overall quality of life in the communities we operate,” he noted.
 
The differentiated port fees to be introduced in January 2019 are based on the international Environmental Ship Index (ESI), which evaluates the amount of air pollution emitted by a ship, the vessel’s energy savings measures as well as readiness to connect the ship to onshore power supply.
 
To receive the discount, ships must hold a specific ESI score. Vessels with the ESI score of 80 and above may apply for a discount of 8 per cent on tonnage fees. For ships with the ESI score between 65 and 79.9, the applicable discount is 3 per cent.
 
“Over 50 ports worldwide are using the index to reward ships that are contributing to better environmental performance, including our closest neighbour Helsinki, Europe’s leading ports of Rotterdam, Antwerp and Hamburg as well as several others,” Margus Vihman pointed out. “And the more ports in a particular shipping route reward sustainable and innovative solutions, the more motivating it is for shipping companies – in Port of Tallinn’s harbours alone that reward may amount to tens and even hundreds of thousands of euros in tonnage fees per year.”

The Port of Tallinn first introduced differentiated port fees in 2014, when discounts were made available for cruise vessels sorting their waste. From early 2018, all vessels using LNG as their primary fuel have been offered a tonnage fee discount of 4 per cent, which will double in January 2019 for ships with the ESI of 80 or more.