First SuperGreen Workshop

Helsinki, Finland, June 28, 2010  - Workshop summary

Some 90 participants attended the first workshop of the SuperGreen project, held in Helsinki, Finland, on June 28, 2010.

The full name of the project is “Supporting EU’s Freight Transport Logistics Action Plan on Green Corridors Issues”, and its abbreviated name is “SuperGreen.” It is a Coordination and Support Action, co-funded by the European Commission in the context of the 7th Framework Programme. The project started last January and will last 3 years. It involves 22 partners from 13 European countries.

SuperGreen aims to assist the Commission with defining the ‘Green Corridor’ concept and promotes the development of European freight logistics in an environmentally friendly manner. The objectives of the SuperGreen project concern supporting the development of sustainable transport networks by fulfilling requirements covering environmental, technical, economic, social and spatial planning aspects. More details can be found in the project’s web site, www.supergreenproject.eu .

The audience of the workshop consisted of logistics service providers, shippers, carriers in all surface modes, intermodal transport companies, policy makers, researchers and analysts, environmental organizations, and other stakeholders interested in green logistics.

The Helsinki workshop was the first among a number of workshops associated with the project. Starting from an initial list of some 60 corridors, a pre-selection of 15 European corridors was first presented, based partly on the current TEN-T and was also relevant in terms of the market and logistics needs of the project’s industrial partners. This pre-selection of corridors has been made according to several criteria (please see relevant presentation).

In addition to details on the pre-selection methodology, the Helsinki workshop has also covered Key Performance Indicators, the role of eFreight, a specific proposal on the most favourable set of corridors for further analysis in the project, and a discussion among representatives of key stakeholders, among the audience, and among the members of the project’s Advisory Committee.

A lively discussion took place so as to hear the stakeholders’ opinion on all issues involved, including which corridors should be further analysed. Based on this input, among other things, the Project’s Management Committee, in its meeting on the following day, concluded at a selection of 9 corridors to be used for benchmarking and further analysis in the project. These corridors are as follows:

Important clarification: The selection of the above corridors was made only for the purposes of the SuperGreen project and by no means implies any endorsement, direct or indirect, either by the SuperGreen consortium or by the European Commission, of these corridors vis-à-vis any other corridor, with respect to any criteria, environmental, economic, or other. Resources available were the main determinant of the number of corridors chosen (9). Also it has to be stated that one of the criteria that was used to select the above corridors was their “greening potential”, that is, the potential for improvement in at least some of their segments according to environmental criteria. Balance in geographical coverage and in modal mix were also considered as important.

The next workshop of the SuperGreen project is tentatively scheduled for October 19, 2010, in Naples, Italy. Please stay tuned for more details.
If you want to be kept posted on SuperGreen, please send us an email at the SuperGreen friends email at  supergreen@martrans.org