UTC 12 008: Port Sustainability Audit

The purpose of this project is to establish a sustainability auditing mechanism for public river ports along the inland waterway system. Future phases of the project will build upon these initial findings and allow for the development of a prioritization system for sustainability initiatives within the organizations that integrates their sustainability approach with the triple bottom line of economic, environmental and social benefits. When fully implemented, this project will allow the opportunity for the development of an individual sustainability plan for each of the public river ports that fit into the mission and strategy of each organization, allowing them to capitalize on any investments that they might make. The main objectives of this phase of the project are: 1) Development of the audit process components for a river port facility to incorporate river port policy, program management and facilities management. The auditing process will take account of 8 facets of port operations including: energy, water, materials/resources, site-docks, outdoor storage, protected storage, onsite transfer and modal connection/transfer. 2) Field visits to selected ports to develop an understanding of river port facility operations. 3) Revise the audit process and components and prepare a rough draft of a sustainability audit process that will be revised in future iterations of the project.