Pioneering green ports

The PIONEERS consortium is a highly ambitious five-year project which will rethink all aspects of port operations ranging from terminal operations, concession agreements, mobility, connectivity, fuel storage and use of energy.

“Port of Antwerp aims to be the first world port that reconciles economy, people and climate,” said Jacques Vandermeiren, CEO Port of Antwerp.

“In order to be climate-neutral by 2050, we need to act now. PIONEERS proves how ambitious Port of Antwerp is in pioneering together with a wide stakeholder network to achieve our goal.”

Green consortium

The PIONEERS consortium represents 46 leading ports, terminal and transport operators, forwarders, knowledge institutes, technology developers, innovators and public entities will showcase concrete solutions reducing GHG emissions in ports while safeguarding their competitiveness.

The project has a timeframe of five years starting at the end of 2021 and will receive a €25 million grant from the European Horizon 2020 programme.

During this time frame it will conduct 19 ambitious demonstrator projects in the field of clean energy production and supply, sustainable port design, modal shift and flows optimisation and digital transformation.

Port of Antwerp will function as lighthouse port, hosting the majority of demonstrators and showcasing what it means to be a green port.

The ports of Barcelona, Constanta and Venlo, as fellow ports, will play an active role in maximising the transferability of the solutions and are engaged to implement the best practices from the project.