The 2025 IAPH World Ports Conference in Kobe marked the 70th anniversary of the association’s founding. To recognise this historic occasion, the association created a special anniversary publication – titled IAPH 2025: Celebrating Seventy Years – which details the history of the organisation. Beginning with the association’s origins with the 1952 International Port & Harbor Conference, this special publication follows IAPH through to its founding in Los Angeles three years later, its flowering as an international organisation in 1965 and the critical establishment of the Japanese Foundation for IAPH in 1973. The booklet brings the story of IAPH up to the present day, with the incorporation of the Environmental Ship Index and the creation of the World Port Sustainability Program and its attendant Sustainability Awards scheme. Copies of IAPH 2025: Celebrating Seventy Years were presented to delegates following a special plenary session at #IAPH2025, which focused on key lessons from the organisation’s first seven decades of operation. A digital copy of IAPH 2025: Celebrating Seventy Years can be read here; it is expected that members will receive their own physical copy of this special publication in the new year. The publication was made possible due to the generous support of the Ports & Harbours Association of Japan and the Japanese Foundation for IAPH.
