Huge quantities of cargo are handled, stored and processed annually in the world’s ports. It is clear that ports play an important role

in the development of the economy and society around the world. However, port operations on both the sea and the land side are

also having negative effects, which in today’s environmentally sensitive society are becoming an increasing problem. Therefore, port

authorities and operators need to look for solutions to reduce these negative effects, while maintaining or even increasing a port’s

competitiveness. This is not an easy task, as ports differ from each other in many ways, and the ability to implement certain solutions,

and the effectiveness of selected solutions, can vary significantly between them. In this article, the authors focus on the problem of air

emissions from port operations. They address all the sources of port air emissions, and verify the effectiveness of selected air emission

mitigation measures in smaller cargo ports. Efficacy examples of selected measures are shown in the case of the Port of Koper,

the only Slovenian cargo port in the north Adriatic, which handled almost 23 million tonnes of cargo in 2019.