Aquitania Portus Nova: A First Operational Milestone for the Ecological Transition of Ports
The Aquitania Portus Nova project reached its first operational milestone with a kick-off workshop held at the Port of Bayonne on 1 October 2026. The meeting brought together the ports involved in the initiative, the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region and Green Marine Europe around a shared objective: to make several ports in Nouvelle-Aquitaine demonstrators of the ecological transition of ports.
Aquitania Portus Nova is a pilot project funded through the Fonds Vert by the Direction interrégionale de la mer Sud-Atlantique (DIRM SA). It aims to support participating ports in structuring and continuously improving their environmental performance, using the Green Marine Europe certification framework.
This first workshop brought together representatives from the Port of Bayonne, Grand Port Maritime de Bordeaux, Port of La Rochelle and Port of Tonnay-Charente, as well as the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region and ADERA, an accredited training organisation specialising in the organisation and management of scientific and technological training programmes in Nouvelle-Aquitaine.
From Self-Evaluation to a Concrete Action Plan
As the ports had already started completing their Green Marine Europe self-evaluation, this first session aimed to answer their questions, clarify the programme’s requirements and prepare the next steps towards verification.
The workshop also provided an opportunity to gather initial feedback on the SMART Guide, the tool supporting participants throughout the Green Marine Europe certification process. The first results are encouraging: participants rated its ease of use at 4.3/5, highlighting in particular the programme’s relevance to the sector, its comprehensive approach, and the clarity of the objectives and examples provided.
For some ports, the process is already producing positive results. In Bordeaux and Tonnay-Charente in particular, the self-evaluation is helping to better structure existing environmental actions and create new momentum for further improvement.
The workshop also provided an opportunity to examine the criteria and expected evidence in greater detail and to discuss several practical situations encountered by the ports during their self-evaluation. These discussions are at the heart of the Green Marine Europe approach: enabling each organisation to assess its performance, identify areas for improvement and gradually build an action plan adapted to its own context.
Preparing for Verification and the Next Steps
The discussions also helped participants prepare for the verification phase scheduled for 2027, highlighting the constructive role of verification. Beyond validating results, verification provides an opportunity for dialogue and helps identify actions to be implemented or strengthened before the next certification cycle.
This first meeting marks the beginning of a series of thematic sessions that will support the ports throughout the project. The next workshop will take place on 8 December in Bordeaux and will focus on biodiversity.
Following the Aquitania Portus Nova workshop, participants also took part the following day in an Aquitania Ports Link working group dedicated to carbon assessments. The ports were able to compare their methodologies, assessment scopes and the challenges they have encountered. All are currently carrying out or updating a carbon assessment that includes Scope 3 emissions, going beyond the regulatory requirements that apply to some of them.
Through Aquitania Portus Nova, Green Marine Europe and its partners aim to test a collective approach at regional level: using Green Marine Europe certification not only as a tool for measuring environmental performance, but also as a framework for cooperation, experience sharing and accelerating the ecological transition of ports.