The ports of Setubal and Sesimbra are inserted in areas of high ecological sensitivity and value for nature conservation: Arrábida Natural Park, Sado Estuary Natural Reserve and Natura 2000 Network. A significant part of the area under port jurisdiction is made up of fens and other kinds of vegetation of high ecological value, being exclusively dedicated to Nature Conservation. The maintenance of the ecological value in these areas contributes not only to the maintenance of the high landscape value of the area but also for recovering stocks of commercially interesting species and maintenance of biodiversity.

Here we find habitats, both underwater and terrestrial, for several species of protected fauna and flora. Largely divulged examples are flamingos, otters, bottle-nosed whale and several species of birds in migratory passage, which depend on the estuary for their survival.

These characteristics unavoidably influence the environmental policy followed by APSS, which is based on the following guidelines:

• Integrate environmental goals in the planning processes and port management and use of maritime public domain.
• Promote the rational use of natural resources.
• Make sure applicable legal requirements are followed.
• Promote studies of scientific investigation that contribute to a better knowledge of the medium were its activity is developed and which allow for an improvement in its environmental performance.
• Cooperate with other entities and taking part in initiatives that contribute to preserving the environment.
• Minimizing the risks and environmental impacts in the developed activities.
• Carry out environmental requalification and re-planning of the areas under its jurisdiction.

To minimize the environmental impacts of the developed activities assumes particular importance the Monitoring Program associated with dredging, which includes the following measures:

• Monitoring of bathymetry
• Modeling of hydrodynamic processes
• Chemical characterization of sediments to be dredged and chemical characterization of the biological communities in the area were the dredging is performed and the areas were the immersion of dredged spoil is done.

Green Award Project
The port of Setúbal is part of the Green Award Project, since 2005, privileging vessels with high standards of safety and environmental efficiency. This project has a basis of attributing the Green Award certificate, by an independent international organization, located in Amsterdam, to vessels which guarantee high standards of safety and environment, and complementarily the attribution of port facilities to ships with that guarantee. A certified ship is internationally recognized as one of the “cleaner and safer ships”, by the fact that they are associated to concepts like “clean technologies” and low probabilities of incident and accident occurrence.