COP27: PORT OF QUÉBEC ANNOUNCES NEW COMMITMENTS TOWARD SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND LOW-CARBON ECONOMY
11/17/2022
Québec City, November 17, 2022 – In connection with COP27, the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, the Port of Québec is proud to announce new commitments toward sustainable development and a low-carbon economy. The Port of Québec is officially joining the United Nations Global Compact, drafting a new plan for sustainable development, and committing itself to the greater transparency and disclosure of the impact of its activities.
Over the coming months, the Port of Québec will ask its many stakeholders, namely citizens, businesspeople, social and environmental organizations, and the port community, its employees, and associates, for their points of view in order to draft its new sustainable development plan slated for the fall of 2023. This structured, collaborative approach advances the Port’s efforts of the past years to address the AIVP (Association internationale Ville-Port) - the Worldwide Network of Port Cities Agenda 2030 to adapt the 17 UN sustainable development goals to city-port relations.
In light of this, the Port of Québec is announcing that, in 2023, it will file a public report disclosing the impacts of its activities on the social, environmental, and economic facets of sustainable development. It will draft the report according to the standards of the Global Reporting Initiative which provides a framework to help companies communicate results in a transparent and harmonized manner.
“Our organization’s ambition must be on par with climate change imperatives driving global commitments and, above all, local actions that may make a great difference at our level and for our community. The Port of Québec wants to take concrete action toward a low-carbon economy by favouring less energy-intense logistical chains, accelerating infrastructure electrification, and protecting its territory’s biodiversity,” asserted the Québec Port Authority President and CEO Mario Girard.
The United Nations Global Compact
As part of this initiative, the Port of Québec intends to draw inspiration from global best practices. Consequently, it is joining other private organizations and companies in signing the United Nations Global Compact. The Global Compact requires that companies align their strategies and operations with the ten universal principles related to human rights, labour, the environment, and anti-corruption, and take steps to further societal objectives and implement the 17 UN sustainable development goals.
AIVP and Agenda 2030
AIVP (Association internationale Ville-Port) - the Worldwide Network of Port Cities is an NGO that has been bringing together urban and port stakeholders and their partners from around the world for thirty years. Its objective is to mutually cooperate to improve city-port relations for more sustainable, responsible, and innovative urban, port and economic development by putting the citizen at the heart of its actions. AIVP laid out 10 port-related sustainable development objectives in Agenda 2030, which was drafted right here in Québec City in 2018. Under its partnership with the UN, it filed the Agenda 2030 with the international organization in 2019, detailing the port cities’ contribution to the 17 sustainable development objectives. The Port of Québec is an active member of AIVP, and its President and CEO Mario Girard is vice president of the board of directors.
About Port of Québec
The Port of Québec is among Canada’s five largest ports in terms of tonnage handled and economic spinoffs. It is strategically located to serve North America’s industrial and agricultural heartland. Each year, cargo ships from or to some fifty countries call at the Port of Québec to connect the Great Lakes and Midwestern U.S. markets to the rest of the world. Twenty percent of the port’s territory, which extends from Beauport to the South Shore, is dedicated to recreational activities and tourism.
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For information:
Frédéric Lagacé
Communications Director
418 929-5031
[email protected]