Duluth ranks among top performers in Green Marine environmental report

(Posted on 18/06/26)

The Duluth Seaway Port Authority and its terminal operations on Rice’s Point once again ranked among the top-tier environmental performers in North America, according to the recently released Green Marine 2025 Performance Report.

The Port Authority posted an overall score of 3.38 on Green Marine’s five-level scale, leading all U.S. Great Lakes ports and ranking among the top performers on the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence Seaway System. Duluth’s mark outperformed both the ports sector average (3.3) and the overall program?wide average (3.1). The new result represents a 4 percent year-over-year improvement for the Port Authority, achieved even as Green Marine introduced more stringent criteria and expanded reporting requirements.

Nearly 50 ports across North America submitted evaluations for the 2025 certification cycle in a program that now certifies more than 220 participants in North America, Europe and other regions.

 Green Marine is recognized as the maritime industry’s leading voluntary environmental certification initiative. The annual report evaluates participants across nine categories: air emissions/greenhouse gases, aquatic ecosystems, community impacts, community relations, dry bulk handling and storage, environmental leadership, spill prevention and stormwater management, underwater noise, and waste management. The 2025 certification cycle builds on recent program updates with strengthened criteria, including a mandatory Aquatic Ecosystems indicator for ports and more ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets. All scores are independently reviewed by accredited third?party verifiers.

 “Each year, the Green Marine standards become more rigorous by design, and that helps participants strive to continually improve,” said Jeff Udd, director of government and environmental affairs, Duluth Seaway Port Authority. “It’s a system that encourages going beyond regulatory compliance.”

 The Duluth Seaway Port Authority has participated in Green Marine since the program’s inception in 2007. Ongoing sustainability efforts at the Clure Public Marine Terminal include energy efficiency upgrades, phased adoption of zero-emission vehicles and equipment, increased use of renewable energy and regular progress monitoring.

Green Marine participation builds on the modal efficiency advantages already achieved by waterborne cargo transport. A thousand-foot Great Lakes freighter carries the cargo equivalent of 2,340 trucks or 564 railcars in a single trip, with substantially lower carbon intensity per ton-mile than any land-based mode. Maritime commerce on the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence Seaway System provides shippers with nearly $4 billion USD in annual cost savings compared to the next least costly transportation alternative.

“The Great Lakes–St. Lawrence Seaway System is public infrastructure federally maintained by the U.S. and Canada, with enough capacity to handle double the current vessel volume,” said Kevin Beardsley, executive director, Duluth Seaway Port Authority. “When freight routes maximize the waterborne leg of the journey, they tap into the region’s most cost-efficient, lowest-emissions transportation corridor. North America already built it. The opportunity is in using it to maximum advantage.”

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