Dutch Blue Ports, the Netherlands

Consultancy for sustainable expansion of Inland Port Infrastructure 

Client: Local Government of Limburg  

Period: 2022-2023  

Facts & Figures  

Location 
Various inland ports, Limburg, The Netherlands  

Scope 
Developing and performing SDG scans op companies in the port, development of sustainable infrastructure development opportunities and the successful application for funding from the Connecting Europe Facility  

Owner/Operator 
Ports of Roermond, Venlo, Maastricht, Maasgouw and Stein  

Partners 
Arcadis, CRUX Engineering, IBI2 

Challenge 
The province of Limburg needs to get ready for the future Modal Shift, from transport over the road to more sustainable transport over water and rail. Therefore a number of the existing inland ports along the river Meuse (Maas) want to increase their capacity. The province of Limburg wants these ports to expand in a sustainable way in order to meet the development goals set by the government. To stimulate sustainable expansion, considerable funding from the EU is available to realize these plans.  

Solution 
A methodology, based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), was developed to measure sustainability for the status-quo and the future situation after expansion. We proposed specific infrastructure measures for each port, to match with the joint ambitions of the companies active in that port. The reports with these plans were submitted and considerable funding from the European Union was received, to cover up to 50% of the construction costs of the sustainable measures.