Ports have a variety of functions which affect the safety of employees, visitors, the surrounding environment and community. At the same time, they are a crucial part of every country’s economy with goods and people travelling from one part of the world to others. That is the reason the marine industry also has loads of regulations to define limits and procedures for everything from work safety and security to air and water emissions.
Laws and regulations are starting points
Ports work relentlessly not just to obey the regulations but also to constantly improve their processes to be safer and more efficient. Many ports have achieved certifications, such as ISO 45001, ISO 14001 or PERS, which have the principle of continuous improvement written in.
New demands for sustainable businesses are rising from European Union directives and global net zero targets for carbon dioxide emissions.
Often the forerunners gain the benefits of visibility but may also have to solve some challenges on the way.
Ports’ core business is to enable efficient marine transport. Understandably, not every port has the resources to dig deep into steadily growing amount of regulations and create their own solutions, so easier answers for keeping up are needed. Also, easiness and efficiency does not hurt even if you have an army of people working with these topics.
Digital tools automatise parts of the documentation
In GISGRO, industry-specific regulations are considered in the development work. One example is incident reporting, which follows the common procedure in ISO safety standards with description and immediate and suggested actions, and has the complete history of handling the incident documented automatically.
In addition to documentation, digital platform eases communication within the team, so everyone involved is on the same page with the situation.
Good communication is a corner stone in ensuring safe operations within a port.
Our emergency planning tool allows ports to prepare and practise for all kinds of different of emergency situations and share essential information to all the necessary stakeholders.
Digital tools are flexible and provide opportunities to improve for ports of different sizes and with different processes – in the onboarding we will discuss how the tools can be used for the best outcome for your port.
How about the environment?
Greener future is a goal for every industry. In ports, it is not only the climate change to be tackled (even though it needs much of the attention), but also the residents of local community appreciate cleaner air.
Vessel traffic is often a significant source of pollution, as about 80-90 % of emissions in a port area originate from vessel traffic. It is important to take also other compounds than greenhouse gas emissions into account to have the information on how to improve the air quality in the area.
GISGRO Green enables calculating port’s emissions from vessel and land traffic and energy consumption, for example. The data sources can be manual or automated if suitable interfaces are available.
The platform makes it easier to evaluate the most significant emission sources as well as reporting to environmental authorities or internal stakeholders.
Decisions on environmental investments and the evaluation of their effectiveness can be done relying on information, not guessing.
User-friendly HSE management for ports
If ports want to encourage their staff to inform management about safety risks and to monitor and document how incidents are handled, more intuitive and user-friendly tools do the trick. The visuality of the platform also reveals the HSE risks easily, as you can see with just one look where the emissions come from or where the near misses happen.
HSE processes can really be easier for both the field staff and the management.
What about your port?
Would you like to see how sustainability of the business could be improved? Just book a quick introduction tour from the link below and see the digital tools in action to get an idea how this could work in your port.
Ville Mäkeläinen
CDBO
+358 44 513 2222
ville@gisgro.com