Circular economy approach to facilitate the transition of the port cities into self-sustainable energy ports—a case study in Copenhagen-Malmö Port (CMP)

Sustainability has recently been one of the main focuses of developments in society and industry. In port cities, sustainable relation between ports and ships is one of the emerging factors of developments. Under the city-port umbrella, there are rarely mechanisms for ports sustainability independent from their cities. In the last years, the increasing negative externalities of the ships, in particular waste and emissions, have been among the priorities of the European ports. To address these issues, solutions like the circular economy in EU port cities has gained significant attention. This paper investigates the application of a waste-to-clean energy model for the Copenhagen-Malmö Port, as a case study. The innovative state-of-art model introduced in this research deals with the feasibility of a closed loop, based on the circular economy, to give added value to a large amount of the waste generated from shipping activities in the Copenhagen-Malmö Port. The proposed model includes key elements such as waste management, biogas plant and cold ironing. Two scenarios are compared, first is the current condition and the second one is assumed with the established circular economy model by the port authority. The scenarios are followed by cost-benefit analyses to show the feasibility of the proposed model.