Research looks at relevance of SDGs wording to port sustainability
SustainabilityAn examination of how the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established by the United Nations is pinpointing which targets can apply to ports, as well as those that might be overlooked due to wording unfamiliar to the industry.
David Tremblay, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral fellow at the Chair in Eco-consulting at the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi who has been conducting this research under the supervision of the Chair’s co-directors, Patrick Faubert and Claude Villeneuve. Tremblay presented some of the two-year post-doctoral research findings on the SDGs at the Association of Canadian Port Authorities (ACPA) Annual Conference last autumn and is working with his research team to complete the report by June 2024.
The research has involved 12 of the 17 port authorities belonging to ACPA.
We looked at how port industry social, environmental and economic actions align with the United Nations’ 17 SDGs and related 169 targets
Since the SDGs were originally established in January 2016, the port industry’s sustainability has focused almost exclusively on their environmental aspects. “To pursue real sustainable development, the industry has to integrate all three dimensions: social, environmental and economic,” Tremblay emphasizes.
Further research is necessary to determine how additional SDGs can be integrated into the port industry.
His team’s study is aiming to fill the knowledge gap created by the absence of a global SDG-focused port referencing framework by identifying which of the 169 targets do relate to the port industry and putting these into a prioritization grid.
Implementing the SDGs at an organizational or local level is termed localization. Localizing the SDGs for the port industry involves:
- Contextualizing the U.N.’s 2030 Agenda according to the port industry’s issues.
- Adapting the SDG targets so they relate to the port industry’s aligned 2030 Agenda.
- Prioritizing the relevant targets at each port, taking into consideration its specific contexts.
By contextualizing the 2030 Agenda in respect to the port industry’s issues, the researchers identified 69 relevant targets.
However, as mentioned, an imbalance was noticed in terms of the proportion of relevant targets within SDGs. While 80% of SDG #11 (relating to Sustainable Cities and Communities) were relevant, less than 15% of SDG #2 (Zero Hunger) and SDG #10 (Reduced Inequalities) and SDG #17 (Partnerships for the Goals) were deemed relevant.
The SDGs with the higher proportion of relevant targets were SDG #14 (Life Below Water at 70%), SDG #12 (Responsible Consumption and Production – 64%) and SDG #13 (Climate Action – 60%).
Once we identified the relevant targets, we reviewed the original wording for these SDG targets to determine whether it could be revised in such a way as to retain its original intent while making it more pertinent to the port industry’s understanding of them
“By adapting the language, we can make it more accessible to non-experts and promote stakeholder ownership of the targets and mobilization in terms of their achievement,” Tremblay shares.
The relevant targets were identified by using seven international port industry frameworks as reference and was subsequently validated by eight Canadian ports. The same port authorities validated the wording adapted for the 69 targets deemed relevant to the port industry.
“With this new grid, each port authority would have to prioritize targets according to the particular context and challenges of its port through a planning process that will include an evaluation of the different parameters within the port-adapted 2030 Agenda reference framework,” Tremblay explains.
With this new grid, each port authority would have to prioritize targets according to the particular context and challenges of its port through a planning process that will include an evaluation of the different parameters within the port-adapted 2030 Agenda reference framework
"It’s an exercise that most of the Canadian ports haven’t yet done, " Tremblay explains.
The original grid was developed by with the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie in partnership with the UQAC Chair of Eco-consulting, and Global Shift Institute. Tremblay subsequently adapted the grid to integrate the SDG targets of relevance to the port industry.
In order to apply the grid to their context, port authorities must assess three specific elements:
- Performance: corresponding to the current level of a target’s achievement.
- Importance: considering each port’s specific context.
- Governance: governing responsibility (local, national, private) over the target.
The cross-referencing of the first two parameters (Performance and Importance) generates a priority index for a specific port authority. The SDG target prioritization grid that now exists for the port industry includes all 169 targets, but only 69 of the targets deemed relevant to the port industry have the adapted wording.
This reference framework can be applied to all port authorities, regardless of their level of progress in implementing sustainable development
“The objective is to start from the global reference framework (U.N.’s 2030 Agenda) to adapt it specifically to the port industry so that each port authority is then able to prioritize its targets according to its unique context.”
For more information, contact David Tremblay.