Copenhagen’s harbours today presents a contradiction. While sleek electric harbour buses and GoBoats glide silently through the city’s waterways, traditional tour operators still rely on diesel-powered vessels that rumble through the canals, emitting NOx particles and cloud the water routes with fumes.
But the municipality is now devising a strategy to accelerate the transition, combining financial incentives with political leverage to move the dial on harbour emissions.
The contract trap
The fundamental challenge lies in timing. Current agreements with Netto-bådene and Canal Tours, which operate the bulk of Copenhagen’s tour boat fleet, run until 2037 without green technology mandates. Under existing Danish law, the municipality cannot simply impose new environmental requirements mid-contract. Any overhaul must wait for renewal.
This creates a ten-year window where diesel continues to dominate harbour air quality, a gap city officials are eager to close.
For operators, the math is daunting. Stromma, the parent company of Canal Tours, estimates that fully converting their fleet to electric propulsion could cost upward of one hundred million kroner. Without financial relief, operators have little incentive to accelerate the shift.
Copenhagen and By & Havn (the public port authority) are now designing an incentive structure to change that calculus. The core proposition: operators who transition to electric propulsion before 2037 would receive contract extensions and access to new, strategically located harbour facilities with dedicated charging infrastructure.
Leverage through real estate
A critical bargaining chip lies on Refshaleøen, the island currently home to both Netto-bådene and Canal Tours’ operational bases and shipyards. As the city redevelops the island, current lease agreements also expire in 2037. The municipality and By & Havn have signaled they could expedite allocation of attractive new waterfront berths, but only for operators committed to electrification.
In parallel, city planners are considering clearing Nyhavn of tour boats after 2037, reserving prime central locations only for electric operators. The strategy would also open the door to new competitors running all-electric fleets, potentially creating pressure through market competition rather than regulation alone.
Despite these levers, Copenhagen’s administration recognizes its constraints. In a letter to Denmark’s environment minister, the city’s chief mayor and two aldermen have called for new national legislation to set mandatory environmental standards for harbour traffic before 2037.
The argument is straightforward: Denmark already permits zero-emission zones for road traffic, yet lacks comparable regulatory tools for water-based transport. City analysis identifies harbour tour boat electrification as the single highest-impact measure for reducing inner-harbour air pollution—but without legal authority to mandate the change, the city is left negotiating with operators rather than directing them.
Copenhagen is looking to Amsterdam’s model, where all new tour boats must be zero-emission, with full fleet conversion required by 2030. A similar framework in Denmark would accelerate the local timeline considerably.
A test of political will
The municipality is now scheduled to vote on formalizing collaboration with By & Havn to develop the incentive structure. If approved, the next phase involves negotiating directly with operators—with both sides aware that the window to reach voluntary agreement remains narrow before existing contracts expire and new legal requirements may apply.
For Copenhagen’s canals, the outcome will signal whether harbour cities can drive green transport transitions through strategic planning and carrots, or whether stronger regulatory sticks from the national level are ultimately needed.
