The New Hansa project was launched because of the increasing sea transport at the Baltic Sea. It has been estimated that Baltic maritime trade will be doubled by the year 2010. Sea transport is basically a good solution for the environment if only some issues both at sea and at ports are considered. The New Hansa of Sustainable Ports and Cities project has concentrated on problems at ports.

Growing maritime transport causes increasing use of land, water and air. In some of the cities air emissions from the ships count up to 80 % of all emissions. There is already a considerable conflict of interests which will only expand as the flow of goods and people is increasing.

The New Hansa project aims at achieving concrete solutions to conflicts between ports, cities, shipping lines, local residents, tourists, wellness sector, fisheries and the environment. Ship owners could be willing to invest in new technologies if there was one common system used in all Baltic ports. However they fear that their investments would be useless as regulations are differing from port to port. The project aims therefore at harmonised practices and policies.

Impacts and outcomes
The objective of the project has been to harmonise and speed up the implementation of sustainable port policy around the Baltic Sea. An extremely important outcome will be a joint policy document - the Baltic Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Sustainable Ports. It will present the harmonised port policies and common practices. Wide commitment to the policy paper has been sought among different stakeholders in the Baltic Sea region. The project has been presented to a number of European Commission working groups as an important pilot activity that can provide inspiration also for their policy processes on maritime transport and ports.

Co-operation challenge
In the Baltic Sea regional level the project is expected to pave the way for better co-operation of ports, cities and stakeholders. None of them can solve the conflicts alone. Ports are in economic competition with each other and therefore only solutions developed and agreed by all main partners can lead to considerable improvements. In addition to 14 ports and port cities and one of the largest shipping companies that are directly involved in the project, other larger ports and port cities in the Baltic Sea region will be involved into the co-operation through the Union of the Baltic Cities.