ESPO congratulates Port of Huelva for renewing EcoPorts’ environmental management standard
ESPO congratulates Port of Huelva (Spain) for renewing EcoPorts’ environmental management standard (PERS) after obtaining it for the first time in 2016.
Being PERS certified requires among others that the port enhances communication with the local community and increases transparency by making its environmental report publicly available. It also implies that the port is effectively monitoring the environmental challenges and is implementing an improved environmental management.
“Relationship with the local community has been a great priority for European port authorities, being continuously on the Top-10 of the environmental priorities since 2009. Further enhancing and communicating their environmental policies and engaging citizens has been a driving force for ports and PERS contributes significantly to that end. I would like to congratulate the Port of Huelva for renewing its PERS certification. For a port, it is getting more and more important to be transparent about its environmental performance towards the local community. It gives citizens a chance to better know their port and possibly be proud of it” says ESPO’s Secretary General, Isabelle Ryckbost.
“The number of ports that have got the environmental standard is going up with 34 out of the 114 EcoPorts members already PERS certified. EcoPorts enables its members to further improve their environmental performance and to deal with challenges such as climate change, air quality and noise. In parallel, data submitted to EcoPorts enables ESPO to come up with an annual Environmental Report and port sector’s environmental benchmarks. This information is made publicly available, allowing local communities, policy makers, research and civil society to check the annual progress of the sector” says EcoPorts Coordinator, Sotiris Raptis.
Compliance with the PERS standard is independently assessed by Lloyd’s Register and the certificate has a validity of two years. PERS is revised after the 2-year period to make sure that the port continues to meet the requirements.
