Measuring port environmental performance

Taking a proactive approach to CSR should be structured and formalising the CSR process is the next logical step – with a standardised and independently verified programme for carbon management, ports can take a holistic approach to emissions that will lead to better benchmarking and raise best practice. This is a critical time for shipping’s image and it is vital to demonstrate to customers, activists in the local community and investors that ports are aware of, and acting on, social and environmental risks. To do this effectively, compared with other industries within the transport sector, shipping still has work to do to ensure transparency of data and therefore, standardised benchmarking.

CSR is becoming increasingly tied to commercial success; it is now considered a key criterion for investment and setting mandatory budgets will also become more commonplace. Industry financiers including ABN AMRO have recently stated that CSR evaluation is now considered an essential element of shipping risk management strategy, linking energy efficiency directly to commercial success for the long term. Ports are leading this trend, with new sustainability initiatives being announced on a weekly basis and mandatory budgets for CSR becoming more commonplace.

Pressure from the EU looks set to continue as it strives to deliver against emission reduction targets of 20% by 2020 versus 1990 levels – without complete dependence upon achieving a global agreement incorporating all emitting industries. With the EU at the fore, talks at COP17 in Durban in December 2011 saw shipping mooted as a major contributor to the Green Climate Fund, and delegates agreed to define new market mechanisms and create a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol, which will have significant implications for shipping. As a result, more action on reducing carbon from the international shipping fleet seems not just likely, but inevitable.

Decarbonising the port supply chain

Ports can significantly contribute to GHG emissions reduction targets for the entire shipping industry by decarbonising the ports logistics and supply chain. So, port operators must be supported to become frontrunners in sustainability for the benefit of the industry on a cross-industry level, as a critical component of the supply chain, especially when dealing with major maritime beneficiaries and stakeholders, such as Toyota, Shell and Ford that advocate progressive CSR programmes.

To do this, seeking expert guidance should be considered a prudent investment – creating a complete and standardised methodology of the best way to measure shipping’s emissions is still in the embryonic stages, but working with experts that have experience gained from other industries that have been through this process, such as aviation for example, is the way to ensure consistent best practice and make real progress, quickly. There is much automatic rhetoric in the marketplace and investing in expert counsel will combat the dangerous misinformation that can prove confusing for port authorities at best and costly at worst.

Measurement of efficiency is the first step, and one that is essential, not only for individual companies but for the industry as a whole to lay a foundation for emissions reduction that is based on true, accurate data to create a complete picture of shipping’s emissions.

Market based measures

The European Commission has proposed new legislation to significantly improve the monitoring and reporting of GHG emissions in line with a series of EU climate and energy targets for 2013-2020. Shipping is one of many sectors that will come under closer scrutiny, making data transparency crucial. This will also be fundamental to the development of successful market based measures, particularly an emissions trading system, which is one option on the table.

Ongoing monitoring and accurate reporting of carbon emissions is the first step to understanding your organisation’s carbon footprint and on a broader scale, developing a workable baseline for genuine and meaningful emissions reduction. Once this is in place, emissions should be reduced with a port-specific management programme to set best practice standards for genuine emission reduction. Finally, carbon emissions can be reduced further through offsetting – identifying carbon credits and using them in a sound offsetting strategy based on expert advice which maximises the rewards from emissions management.

Taking a holistic approach to emissions management is critical to ensuring that ports can maximise these commercial benefits. As more new environmental initiatives are announced, port authorities have a responsibility to invest in solid measurement that will not only highlight their fundamental role in reducing the shipping industry’s emissions, but also get on the right path for future regulation and achieving true sustainability.