Environment Policy

The Environmental Vision of GeelongPort is to become Australia’s most sustainable port.

GeelongPort is committed to conducting business activities in a way that protects the environment, prevents pollution, minimises adverse environmental impacts and delivers continual improvement in environmental performance. We will ensure environmental responsibility remains at the core of our business approach.  In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach is applied by GeelongPort.  Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty will not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.

Given the significant economic and employment impact of the Port of Geelong, GeelongPort has:

• An obligation to the Geelong region and to Victoria to continually improve the sustainability of our operations;
• A responsibility to understand and manage our environmental values;
• A duty to cooperate with our neighbours, community, industry groups and government; and
• An opportunity to lead environmental progress for our industry and region.

Health Safety and Environmental Excellence is a supporting pillar of the GeelongPort Business Strategy. Under this pillar, GeelongPort commits to:

• Integrating environmental sustainability throughout our business;
• Operating responsibly at all times;
• Ensuring we fulfill our compliance obligations; and
• Working towards environmental benchmarks.

GeelongPort operates within an Environmental Management System (EMS) certified to ISO14001:2015.

Significant environmental aspects identified for GeelongPort using the ISO14001:2015 framework are dust emissions, stormwater quality and water quality in Corio Bay and historical legacy land and groundwater contamination. These aspects are linked to our own operational activities, and those of our port users including tenants, as well as historic land uses. We will systematically identify and control environmental aspects using a risk-based approach based upon the ISO 31000:2018 Risk Management standard.

GeelongPort is committed to ensuring sustainable environmental management through the development of environmental outcomes in line with the four focus areas:

• Minimising resource use
• Eliminating waste and emissions
• Nurturing our port land
• Supporting an appealing and healthy Corio Bay and environs

To achieve our environmental outcomes, we are committed to:

• Working to maintain our social licence to operate;
• Engaging and collaborating actively with our workforce, tenants, port users and stakeholders;
• Ensuring compliance with all relevant legislation, regulation and other requirements to which GeelongPort subscribe and proactively supporting initiatives that go beyond compliance obligations;
• Identifying and managing material environmental risks, opportunities and impacts;
• Developing medium and long term carbon emission reduction targets in line with limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels;
• Setting objectives, targets and management programs based on material environmental aspects including sustainable resource use, decarbonisation, environmental noise, improved air quality, climate change mitigation and adaptation, hazardous chemicals, legacy contamination, biodiversity and cultural heritage protection, and demonstration of environmental leadership;
• Measuring and reporting on our environmental performance to our internal and external stakeholders;
• Actively contributing to local environmental initiatives;
• Investing in infrastructure to prevent environmental impacts;
• Communicating to our employees the importance of effective environmental management and conforming to the EMS requirements;
• Reporting and appropriately managing all environmental hazards, incidents, community complaints and legacy conditions;
• Incorporating environmental considerations into decision-making and procurement processes;
• Ensuring effective obligations and controls are included in all commercial agreements;
• Implementing verification processes to ensure compliance with this policy and to drive continuous improvement of our environmental performance; and
• Delivering training and awareness programs to ensure our employees and contractors:
  • Understand the significant environmental aspects for GeelongPort,
  • Know their environmental accountabilities and
  • Have the necessary skills to minimise the environmental risks of our operations.

GeelongPort is committed to the continual improvement of our EMS and will maintain and resource it adequately through allocation of people, finances, assets, and knowledge. We will review the effectiveness of our EMS on an annual basis and implement actions to continuously improve both the EMS and our environmental performance and ensure the EMS meets its intended outcomes.