Port Environmental Index (PEI)

The following implementation case was developed as an outcome of the PIXEL project (Port IoT for Environmental Leverage) aiming to manage an efficient use of resources in ports, sustainable development and green growth of ports and surrounding cities/regions.

Within the outcomes, PIXEL developed an index named Port Environmental Index (PEI), which is a quantitative indicator of the environmental performance.  The index is believed to be very challenging as it represents a huge progress in combining diverse sciences to achieve the results.

It aims to create a comprehensive, standardized, and transparent methodology to quantify most relevant environmental aspects of ports and its related impacts into a single metric (flexibly adaptable to comprise different impacts depending on the port concerns). The added value of this metric is that it is a self-assessment procedure, and it is an automated real-time data collection system obtained through IoT which obtains a quantitative result that can be compared with other ports.

The PEI is calculated through the KPIs of the following figure:

Figure 1. KPIs and Subindexes for PEI calculations[1]

As it can be seen, it originally includes atmosphere emissions but also those regarding noise or odours, as well as the light pollution generated. Moreover, it considers the production of waste and the water waste, so that a complete vision of the environment is offered. Besides, flexibility is given so that other relevant considerations such as dredging impact or the repercussion on biodiversity could be included, following a determined methodology and guidelines.

The index presents an elevated degree of innovation because it is:

• The first IoT-based environmental performance assessment tool using the existing sensor and server infrastructure enhanced to a baseline.

• Monitored real-time environmental KPIs focusing 6 initial domains selected based on the real needs and limitations of ports.

• Built on robust scientific methodology allowing for an accurate and comprehensive monitoring based on well-established workflows.

• Taking into consideration the complex variations of ports and their needs, and the variability of the data they can access and load

The benefits that this solution brings to the ports are:

• A quantitative real-time measure of the port environmental performance using the existing sensor infrastructure.

• It can satisfy the intention of measuring ports’ performance and environmental impacts and to track it during the years

• It may serve as a benchmark that ports can use to evaluate their environmental performance and to compare it to the other ports

• It can be used as a tool to understand the beneficial impact of measures implemented in ports (e.g., LNG-propelled machinery or off-shore energy supply).

• Comprehensive and flexible Big Data Information Hub with APIs.

Within the framework of the project, the index and its algorithms were developed thanks to the effort made by the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV). From the project living labs, the index remained in three of the four ports: currently is still being used in the ports of Bordeaux, Mont Falcone and Thessaloniki.

The PEI is currently an open-source software available to all interested parties. In fact, there is a transfer contract between the UPV and the Spanish port of Vigo that allows this technology to continue expanding. The brief time passed since the end of the project and the success of adding Vigo to the ports that have the technology, highlights its importance and opens the door to future implementations.