Analysis of the evolution of Brazilian ports’ environmental performances

Worldwide, communities living near ports and environmentalists put pressure on port authorities to mitigate their environmental impacts with the major ones being water and air pollution. In 2011, Brazil, through the National Agency of Waterway Transportation (ANTAQ), advanced towards monitoring and environmental control in national ports. ANTAQ signed a cooperation agreement with the Interdisciplinary Center for Transport Studies at the University of Brasilia (CEFTRU/UnB) to develop a methodology to calculate the environmental performance of port facilities. The result of this cooperation is the Environmental Performance Index, known as IDA, which assumes values between zero and one (0 ≤ IDA ≤ 1). Optimum port environmental performance is reached when the index is equal to 1. ANTAQ computes IDA for thirty Brazilian ports located in the North, Northeast, South and Southeast and administered by federal, state or local agencies. This paper analyzes the evolution of the environmental performance in Brazilian ports and investigates whether environmental performance differs between them. The study comprises the period between the first semester of 2012 and the first semester of 2016 (2012.01-2016.01). The application of tests for means comparison to the data revealed that: a) environmental performance was lower in the ports managed directly by the federal government when compared to the environmental performance of the delegated ports; b) the environmental performance of the ports of the macro-regions South/Southeast was higher than in the ports of the macro-regions North/Northeast. The paper is not dedicated to understanding the reasons for the differences in port environmental performance during the period considered. That should be the subject of additional research.