Ursula van der Leyen, president of the European Commission, announced on September 15^th, 2022 that the commission would create a European hydrogen bank. This will help the EU countries buy the gas and construct the future hydrogen market, in which ports will play a major role. Across the world, the Development Bank of Japan and ClassNK have established a Zero-Emission Accelerating Ship Finance Program to evaluate the asset of environmentally friendly ships. The program has already evaluated and loaned money to acquisition of an LPG dual-fueled LPG carrier.

On 16 September, the port of Cartagena launched the first of five phases in the redevelopment of Plaza Mayor, at a ceremony attended by 1,400 people. Altogether, the port will invest nearly €28 million in five key areas, as part of a project designed to forge stronger ties between citizens and their port. The project will showcase the area’s historic heritage, install efficient lighting, create rest areas, create new hotel facilities, and expand the cultural, and sports offering.

The Association Cruise Bordeaux (France), gathering all port city stakeholders of Bordeaux relevant for the cruise industry, has launched the “Faison Escale Ensemble” declaration of action to regulate the use of the river committing to making cruise stopovers more responsible. The declaration has 3 main goals:

The declaration includes from detailed objectives for goals 1 and 2 regarding environmental protection of the river and reducing the impact of cruises, while goal 3 indicates that all ships with stopovers in Bordeaux will have to sign and respect the “the charter of commitments for sustainable stopovers”, launched in 2020.

In the first weeks of September many ports, including Leixões (Portugal), Bilbao (Spain) and Halifax (Canada), hosted open door events bringing the community to the waterfront. All offered very intense programs of activities, particularly for families, including games, theater, and concerts, but also, visiting vessels and enjoying maritime shows. In Bilbao, families could join boat building workshops, while in the port of Leixões they could enjoy photo exhibitions and the research center CIIMAR in the cruise terminal. In Halifax, visitors could also get information on career pathways and opportunities. Other cases like Oslo (Norway) or Bordeaux (France) joined cultural events, such as the Culture Night or the Heritage Days respectively, to encourage the people to discover their facilities.