ESPO General Assembly : congratulations to Port Boulogne Calais for achieving high environmental standards - Publication of ESPO Annual and sustainability report
08 November 2017
ESPO is delighted to congratulate the Port Boulogne Calais for achieving the Port Environmental Review System (PERS) certification, the only port sector specific environmental management standard provided by the EcoPorts Network.
The PERS certificate was handed over to the port during the ESPO General Assembly by the ESPO Chairman, Eamonn O’Reilly, the ESPO Secretary General, Isabelle Ryckbost and the EcoPorts Coordinator, Sotiris Raptis. Compliance with the PERS standard is independently assessed by Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance and the certificate has a validity of two years. There are currently 25 ports in Europe and its neighbouring countries in the EcoPorts Network certified by PERS. ESPO encourages all ports within its membership to apply for PERS certification.
On the occasion of receiving the PERS certificate, Armand Corbeaux, from the Port Boulogne Calais (picture, right), said: “Our port constantly aims at addressing the environmental risks and further improving its environmental strategy. EcoPorts and PERS have helped us obtain a better oversight and advance our environmental management. We have identified environmental challenges, taken into account good practices, better communicated our strategy to the public and finally achieved high environmental standards. For instance, since our last PERS certification, we have changed our waste management process and have aimed to improve energy efficiency.”
During its general Assembly, ESPO also published its Annual Report and its Environmental Report 2017. The Annual Report, which can be found here, outlines ESPO’s activities over the past year.
On the other hand, the European Port Industry Sustainability Report 2017, which can be found here, was produced under the PORTOPIA project and is fully in line with the environmental performance indicators developed under the project. Part of the Report is the update of the Top 10 environmental priorities of the port sector. The 2017 Top 10 includes Air Quality, Energy Consumption, Noise, Water quality, Dredging operations, Garbage/ Port waste, Port development (land related), Relationship with local community, Ship waste and Climate Change. Air quality remains at the top of the priorities together with Energy consumption, Noise and Water quality. Climate Change enters the top 10 for the first time and confirms that European ports put this topic high on their agenda.
In addition, tonight will see the celebration of the 9th annual ESPO Award on Societal Integration. The theme of this year is Art and Cultural involvement of the port. The President of the TRAN Committee Karima Delli will be announcing the winner at a ceremony taking place at La Tentation in Brussels.
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