Environment

ISO14001:2018

We’re proud to be certified for our environmental management systems across all ports. The international certification demonstrates the rigour of our environmental management programs and provides assurance of our commitment to be responsible custodians of our ports and their environments.

Environmental Management System

Southern Ports uses its Environmental Management System Manual to guide our strategy for the identification and assessment of environmental risks, implementation of controls to reduce risk, and outline environmental monitoring to validate the effectiveness of controls.

We also undertake strict environmental compliance and reporting, and comply with all statutory commitments including those under Licenses L5099/1074/14 (Port of Esperance) and L6744/1996/12 (Port of Bunbury) and other approvals.

Environmental initiatives and programs

Measuring and reducing our impacts

Southern Ports has more than 20 dust and noise monitors located around our three ports to ensure we mitigate the impacts of our operations on our surrounding communities.

We implement a range of dust mitigation methods across our operations and maintain standards for our port users to adhere to.

Dust monitoring results are reported to the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation as required.

Creating safe spaces

As our land hosts several ageing assets, we’re working to remove historic asbestos contamination. Most recently this has included remediation works at several public parklands including Mass Rocks at the Port of Albany.

Adventureland Park at the Port of Esperance was also assessed as sufficiently remediated.

Developing green buffer zones

We’re always conscious how closely located our ports are to our local communities and therefore have been establishing appealing buffer zones around our ports.

To date more than 3,500 seedlings have been planted on Brunswick Road in Albany.

Trialing new products and ways of loading

We work with the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation’s shipment regulations to test the effectiveness of environmental controls applied to new trade products and loading methods (which last year included feldspar and washed silica sand).

Biosecurity protection

We facilitate the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development Aquatic Pest Biosecurity’s introduced marine species survey of the Albany Harbours.

The survey, which was last undertaken in March, was the first comprehensive introduced marine species survey to occur in the region since 2008.

Survey techniques included scuba diving, shoreline assessments, remotely operated vehicle surveillance and a range of netting and trapping.

Once available, the survey results will complement the ongoing State-Wide Array Surveillance Program implemented annually across our ports.

Ensuring a healthy habitat

In Bunbury, Southern Ports’ ongoing monitoring partnership with Murdoch University continued, with results demonstrating there was no year-on-year deterioration in marine and water sediment quality related to port-controlled operations. There were no environmental exceedances of seawater metal levels.

Keeping Albany Harbours sustainable

We’re proudly part of the Albany Harbours Sustainability Group which works to manage, protect and enhance the environmental and sustainable use of Albany’s waterways.

Excellence for stormwater treatment

We’ve built a stormwater treatment system into one of our berths at the Port of Esperance to reduce contaminants from stormwater runoff entering the ocean.

The award-winning system has been successful in removing particulate and dissolved contaminants from the stormwater across the berth.