Port of Tallinn won the reputable Seatrade Cruise Awards Environmental Initiative Award

Port of Tallinn won the reputable Seatrade Cruise Awards Environmental Initiative Award for micro-tunnel construction in Tallinn Old City Harbour. The new micro-tunnel will able all ships calling at the Old City Harbour to discharge unlimited amounts of sewage.

Port of Tallinn’s Head of Marketing and Comunication Sirle Arro accepted the award at the Seatrade Cruise Awards award ceremony, which took place yesterday, in Tenerife. „Winning the Environmental Initiative Award was a positive surprise as two other important environmental projects were also nominated. In addition to our micro-tunnel construction, ABB’s linear flow azipod, which will increase cruise ships’ fuel efficiency up to 10% and cruise company Carnival Corporation’s initiative to build LNG-powered cruise ships were also nominated as finalists for the Environmental Initiative Award.“

“It was our pleasure to accept the Environmental Initiative Award at the Seatrade Cruise Awards ceremony. We believe that the received recognition will help to bring attention to the environmental aspects of the Baltic Sea and we also hope that our project will serve as a positive example for other ports,” added Arro.

In May 2016 construction works began on the micro-tunnel, the main objective of which is to increase the reception capacity of sewage from 100 mᵌ to 1,000 mᵌ per hour due to construction of ship-shore-fixed sewage reception facilities connected to municipal sewer system. The construction work will be finished by the end of this year. For the construction of the micro-tunnel in the port, Port of Tallinn has requested and received EU co-financing from the development of the Helsinki-Tallinn maritime link projects: Twin-Port I and Twin- Port II. The total amount of the investment is EUR 2.45 million, of which EUR 690,000 is covered by the funding.

Seatrade Cruise Awards is an international competition, where both ports and port complexes are participating but also different maritime and marine tourism companies and operators. In addition to Environmental Initiative Award the competition includes four more categories – Port of the Year, Destination of the Year, Supplier of the Year and Innovative Shorex of the Year Award.

This year, ABP Port of Southampton won the Port of the Year category, Singapore Tourism Board was announced to be the Destination of the Year, B&A Europe the Supplier of the Year and the Innovative Shorex of the Year award went to Hidden City Tours/Intercruises for Barcelona guided walking tour by homeless.

Judged by an independent panel of experienced cruise industry specialists, the Seatrade Cruise Awards is one of the highest accolades in the cruise industry. This year the winners were presented in Tenerife at the Seatrade Cruise Med Party on September 22.

(Source: http://www.portoftallinn.com/news?art=775)