Press Release ESPO Award

ESPO award 2023: one month left to submit your project!

06 June 2023

The ESPO Award 2023 will reward the port’s role in contributing to nature restoration projects benefitting the local community.

Is your port successful in protecting and restoring nature in and around the port area to the benefit of the citizens and local community? Prepare your project for the ESPO award 2023 and submit it by 7 July!

The ESPO Award on Social Integration of Ports is entering its 15th edition. The theme of this year is “Nature restoration projects in ports benefitting the local community”.

Since ports are often located in or near different precious natural areas, they strive to integrate the protection of biodiversity in all port operations, making it part of their license to operate. Over the years, ports in Europe have gained extensive experience with sustainable port operations and development. These sustainability efforts in ports are based on respecting and working with nature and habitat requirements already set out in European and national legislation, whilst striving to go beyond regulatory requirements. 

The ESPO Award 2023 will go to the port managing body which has developed innovative ways to develop these new roles and combine port development with successfully protecting and restoring nature in and around the port area to the benefit of the citizens and local community. The winning project will be a project which can clearly demonstrate how nature protection and restoration efforts can be successfully combined with port development projects. 

Project submissions have to reach the ESPO Secretariat by Friday 7 July 2023 at the latest. The application form and the terms of reference are available on the ESPO Website.

The 15th ESPO Award will be officially handed out during an Award Ceremony and Dinner, which will take place during the second week of November 2023 in Brussels (exact date to be confirmed). The ESPO award ceremony will be celebrated together with the 30th anniversary of ESPO.

All project submissions are gathered in a special brochure. The ESPO award is a painting developed by the Dutch port painter, Sasja Hagens.

ESPO Award 2022: Port of Barcelona Authority wins the ESPO Award 

About the ESPO award  
The ESPO Award was established in 2009 to promote innovative projects of port authorities that improve social integration of ports, especially with the city or wider community in which they are located. In this way, the Award aims to stimulate the sustainable development of European ports and their cities.

Previous winners of the Award are the Port of Gijón (2009), the Port of Helsinki (2010), the Ports of Stockholm (2011), the Port of Genoa (2012), the Port of Antwerp (2013), the Port of Koper (2014), Port of Dublin (2015), BremenPorts (2016), Guadeloupe Ports Caraïbes (2017), Port of Rotterdam (2018), Port of Dover (2019), Algeciras Port Authority (2020), and Port of Gdańsk Authority (2021), Port of Barcelona (2022).

Related documents

No attachments.