Six winners to be announced from a shortlist of eighteen finalists at the IAPH World Ports Conference Gala Dinner at the Antwerp Bourse on 18 March
Following close scrutiny of a long list of forty-five candidate projects by an expert jury, three finalists have now been announced for each of the six categories of 2020 World Ports Sustainability Awards. These candidates can now be voted for by the public online on the WPSP website until Friday, 28 February, whose selection will count for 30% of the final tally of points for each finalist.
IAPH World Ports Sustainability Program's Technical Director Antonis Michail commented : "The final eighteen projects from the original long list fulfil the ambition of our Program, which is to demonstrate global leadership of ports in contributing to the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. They form part of a total of 120 well defined and detailed projects registered from IAPH member ports around the world which we have now used as the base for the publication of the first annual IAPH World Ports Sustainability Report, which will be published and made available to attendees of the IAPH 2020 World Ports Conference in March."
The first WPSP category is Resilient Infrastructure (both physical and digital),which aims at anticipating demands of maritime transport and land-side logistics, at being resilient to changes in climate and weather conditions whilst at the same time developing in harmony with local communities, nature and heritage.
The second WPSP category is Climate and Energy, with examples on how port community actors can collaborate in refining and developing tools to facilitate reduction of CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions from shipping, port and land-side operations. In addition, these initiatives enable energy transition, improve energy efficiency and stimulate circular economy.
For the third category, the number and quality of participating projects was so high, that two sub-categories for Community Outreach and Port City Dialogue have been created. The first sub-category involve urban stakeholder engagement in the projects themselves, with port community actors offering them innovative, mutually- beneficial solutions which help make their city more attractive and resilient. The projects in the second category effectively address the social and environmental impact of port operations and strive towards continuous improvement in close cooperation with the port communities.
With the advance of global terrorism, cross-border criminality and the rise of digitalisation, security problems have obtained an entirely new dimension. In addition, ports are held to account on regulatory duties and responsibilities related to ensuring safety and security of ship and cargo operations within their ports as well as the enforcement of applicable laws and regulations. The finalists in this category show innovations in both Safety and Security.
In the Governance and Ethics category, the candidates actively integrate principles of good corporate governance, aiming to raise the bar of ethics and transparency, often extending much further from traditional port responsibilities to addressing key community needs and the port's contribution to global issues such as carbon neutrality and the circular economy.
For a downloadable list of all the finalists with links to details of each one, click here
To view all the finalists in each of the six categories, visit :
https://sustainableworldports.org/iaph-world-ports-sustainability-awards-2020
To vote for your choice of winners, visit :
https://sustainableworldports.org/iaph-world-ports-sustainability-awards-2020/vote/
Voting will close at midnight Central Europe Time on Friday, 28 February.
The winners will be announced during the Gala Dinner of the upcoming IAPH 2020 World Ports Conference in Antwerp on Wednesday, 18 March.
About IAPH (iaphworldports.org)
Founded in 1955, the International Association of Ports and Harbors (IAPH) is a non-profit-making global alliance of 170 ports and 140 port-related organisations covering 90 countries. Its member ports handle more than 60 percent of global maritime trade and around 80 percent of world container traffic. IAPH has consultative NGO status with several United Nations agencies. In 2018, IAPH established the World Ports Sustainability Program (WPSP). Guided by the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, it aims to unite sustainability efforts of ports worldwide, encouraging international cooperation between all partners involved in the maritime supply chain. WPSP (sustainableworldports.org) covers five main areas of collaboration: energy transition, resilient infrastructure, safety and security, community outreach and governance.