Environmental Best Practice Port Development: An Analysis of International Approaches
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- 5.5Incentive programs and awards
- 5.6Stakeholder engagement and awareness
5.4Port tenantsEnvironmental management systems, such as ISO 14001, are applied to activities that can be directly controlled or influenced by the organisation. The ability to impose environmental management requirements on tenants is dependent on the lease or contractual arrangements in place. Examples of how some international ports influence environmental management in tenants include:
Ports may also incorporate environmental requirements into lease conditions, however, due to the commercial nature of a lease these are not publically available and hence no examples were reviewed as part of this study. Australian ports also adopt a variety of approaches to influencing environmental performance in tenants, with Australian management approaches including Ports North conducting audits and inspections of tenants, Flinders Ports requiring tenants and contractors to comply with procedures under their ISO 14001 certified EMS, and Fremantle Port Authority publishing EMP guidelines and requiring all tenants to prepare an Operations Environmental Management Plan. Where lease conditions can be modified or new leases are established, a best practice approach would include incorporating environmental performance requirements into the lease conditions and then the port regularly auditing compliance against these, as this provides a method for mandating a level of performance and then checking and implementing corrective measures if this has not been achieved. Where lease conditions are unable to be modified, a best practice approach may be to provide guidance to tenants on good environmental management then work with them to facilitate improvements in environmental performance. This may also be achieved through incentive programs (as discussed below in section 5.5). It was also discussed during consultation that port land-use plans, as the subordinate level of planning instruments to master plans, could be further used to influence environmental performance of tenants (see Section 4). 5.5Incentive programs and awardsA number of ports have adopted incentive programs to drive improvements in environmental performance and to influence other organisations, such as shipping companies and tenants, towards improved practices. Awards and recognition for good environmental performance include:
An industry award can improve the profile of the recipient and thus be a valuable marketing tool to promote environmental credentials. The prospect of obtaining a high profile, well respected award or a valuable incentive may therefore act as a driver for ports to move towards best practice. The effectiveness of awards in identifying best practice depends on the criteria used to assess applicants, the level of rigour used in the assessment and the independence and qualifications of the persons scoring the applicants. For example:
5.6Stakeholder engagement and awarenessTransparent and open stakeholder engagement is important for knowledge sharing and to understand community values. Public reporting is an important component of this; in addition to use of independent review by scientific experts to build creditability and community trust in port practices. The European Union’s EcoPorts program encourages knowledge sharing and benchmarking between ports. In Australia, Ports Australia provides an information sharing forum through their Environmental Working Group, which facilitates knowledge sharing within working group between port authorities. In order to maximise the benefit of these forums, open and transparent communication is required to enable successes to be celebrated and failures learned from. International ports have taken additional actions to encourage community engagement, such as:
Ports that are held (or hold themselves) accountable to stakeholders and the public may be more motivated to research and implement new approaches to improve their environmental performance and to be proactive to correct environmental issues as soon as they arise. Also, being open and transparent enables community values and concerns to be taken into account when planning new works and adds an extra level of accountability (in addition to regulatory requirements) that will further encourage compliance to commitments made and continuous improvement. This may provide for higher levels of stakeholder acceptance of the project. Stakeholder engagement and transparency varies from port to port in Australia. In many cases this is driven by regulation as part of project approvals processes, including for engagement with traditional landowners at both Commonwealth and State level. Most ports choose to feature an environment section of their webpage providing an overview of their approach to environmental management and highlighting specific programs, but publication of performance data is limited. There are some examples of public reporting of monitoring results, such as monitoring data and audit findings for the Port Phillip Bay Channel Deepening Project and operational monitoring data for air quality, noise, sediment quality for Esperance Ports. Directory: system -> files -> resources resources -> The National Heritage List and Commonwealth Heritage List: 1 july 2008 30 june 2013 resources -> Reference list for water related coal seam gas and coal mining research resources -> Michigan Association of Intermediate School Administrators isd sections of Law resources -> Executive Summary 3 Background 4 Developing the National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme 4 resources -> Threat abatement plan for disease in natural ecosystems caused by resources -> Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities Annual Report 2011–12 resources -> Sawfish and River Sharks Multispecies Issues Paper resources -> Wildlife Trade Management Plan – Queensland Crocodile Farming Download 0.6 Mb. Share with your friends:
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