Countdown to #IAPH2025: From WPCI to ESI

As the 2000s ended, IAPH continued to focus on environmental care, even as the Great Recession buffeted the industry. “We should not allow rough economic weather to blow us off the course of sustainability,” urged secretary general Satoshi Inoue in Ports & Harbors magazine, as 2009 began. He was reflecting on the launch of the World Ports Climate Initiative (WPCI) in Los Angeles two months previously. WPCI was designed for the global port community to work together to tackle climate change via six lead projects, including one focused on indexing all vessels calling at ports based on emission performance. These ambitious goals were discussed at the 2009 IAPH conference, hosted by the Port Authority of Genoa in May. In an echo of the forthcoming Kobe conference, the programme focused on balancing sustainability ambitions against economic upheaval, culminating in the unanimous adoption of the Genoa Resolution urging ports to invest in productivity and tackle climate change through the WPCI. The gala dinner was staged in the magnificent Palazzo Ducale, the Palace of the Doges of Genoa, where soprano and baritone singers performed. The following conference, hosted by Busan Port Authority in early May 2011, took place in the shadow of the devastating Great East Japan Earthquake two months earlier. Appropriately, it included a resolution to donate US$10,000 from the association’s general accounts to the IAPH Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund. The event saw two other critical resolutions, the first on the Safety of Containers in the Supply Chain – pressing for requirements for shippers to correctly pack and document cargo, including the mandatory accurate weighing at the origin of the shipment. The other urged members and non-members to join the recently established Environmental Ship Index (ESI). WPCI was making significant progress and its chair, Geraldine Knatz of the Port of Los Angeles, was unanimously elected the 29th IAPH president.