Lateral thinking

The Port of Antwerp provides us with some food for thought on that score. Last month, the Flemish government held its annual ‘Thick Sweater Day’. Over 600 Antwerp-based businesses used the day to reduce CO2 emissions. For the Port of Antwerp, this meant knocking the thermostat down a couple of degrees in the Authority’s office buildings, hence the don a sweater tag.

While 2009 figures are still being calculated, 2008 figures show that 570 tonnes of CO2 were saved in just one day, while crucially E130,000 was saved by the Antwerp businesses, schools and local authorities that took part.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out that this could be a savvy way to save money in a crunch. We’re certain office workers would prefer to dig out jumpers to wear to work than face the prospect of a short working week, or worse still redundancy. Antwerp has certainly seen the benefit as it is now investigating making the move permanent.

Another port that has taken the credit crunch bull by the horns is New Zealand’s Ports of Auckland. Its performance-related programme introduced in May 2008 has worked a treat. Since its introduction, crane rates have increased 6.5% and staff hours per container have decreased 11.3%.

Over 200 staff realised the benefit of performance bonuses in January after reaching key productivity targets. Hard cash in workers’ pockets is an age-old incentive to drive staff to excel.

And when times are tough, ports that rise to the challenge of increasing productivity, rather than waiting for business to ebb away, will still be here when we finally emerge from this downturn.

These unusual times call for some lateral thinking, which some of our port brethren certainly appear to relish. So, what are you waiting for?