Industry support for policies that incorporate environmental, economic and social considerations could enable a regulatory improvement review with the goal of delivering stronger, more sustainable coastal communities across both dimensions, the chief executive officer of UKMPG has said.<\/p>\n
However, this doesn’t require the government to create more environmental legislation or to adopt a start from scratch approach, said Tim Morris, speaking exclusively to GreenPort. “What is required is a renewed focus on how the current rule book can be improved both in theory and in its application.”<\/p>\n
Three levels<\/strong><\/p>\n Reviewing environmental legislation forms part of the UKMPG\u2019s and the British Port Association\u2019s (BPA) 10-point plan for UK ports and the UKMPG believe there are three levels at which at renewed focus can be achieved.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the highest level it starts with setting out a clear vision for the environment and a positive interaction within legislation,\u201d Mr Morris said. For example, outcomes to be achieved and guiding principles to be followed could be set out.<\/p>\n \u201cMarine planning should be properly integrated into the wider development process and there should be explicit, standing recognition of the role of ports in the \u2018blue economy\u2019 and facilitating UK trade,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Additionally, he stated, there needs to be a way for Statutory nature conservation bodies (SNCBs), regulators, industry, Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) and other relevant organisations to work more closely together and in a more constructive way.<\/p>\n Economic linking<\/strong><\/p>\n At the next level, industry needs more consistent detail on economic concepts like \u2018Net Gain\u2019 and natural capital and the way these concepts can be applied to support development as well as environmental protection. \u201cOtherwise we\u2019re just adding another compliance hurdle,\u201d stressed Mr Morris.<\/p>\n \u201cLinked to this we\u2019d like to see \u2018Net Gain\u2019 viewed in a broad sustainably sense, encompassing social dimensions too so that benefits to local communities are being more directly addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n Application improvement<\/strong><\/p>\n Lastly, there should be a collective look at where the detail of rules and their application can be improved, said Mr Morris.<\/p>\n One approach to this could be linking and streamlining the separate environmental assessment processes that may be required for developments, explained Mr Morris.<\/p>\n Compensatory measures for development could also be applied in ways which contribute better to the overall benefit of local ecosystems and communities.<\/p>\n Greater use could also be made of cost benefit analysis linked to the socio-economic benefits that derive from development.<\/p>\n \u201cCurrent over simplistic and inflexible \u2018like for like\u2019 approaches can preclude opportunities for innovative enhancement,\u201d he warned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Commitment to sustainable development amongst UK port operators offers a prime opportunity to make environmental regulation more effective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":628,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regulation-policy-greenport"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":629,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627\/revisions\/629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}