How the World’s First Zero-Emissions Terminal Embraces Sustainability

“It is important to have an overall vision on sustainability, otherwise you will not be able to realise your goals”, states Frank Tazelaar. And being the managing director of Rotterdam-based APM Terminals Maasvlakte II (AMPT MVII), the first zero-emissions terminal worldwide, he definitely knows.

Worldwide operating APM Terminals is part of the A. P. Møller-Mærsk Group, the new terminal APMT MVII will be in business starting February 2015. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is valued highly, according to Tazelaar: “We always run a business for the long term in a certain environment and certain surroundings. To be successful and achieve your goals you depend on your environment and we, therefore, focus on the local community. To give an example: we are currently building the first container terminal in Cos- ta Rica. This has an impact on the environment and we see it as our duty to invest in education there. In West-Africa, we invest in the area of security. Depending on the location we supplement our CSR.”

Gabriel Kierkels, head of HSSE at APMT MVII, adds: “APMT has a clear vision on CSR and has therefore committed itself to the UN Global Compact.”

The UN Global Compact is a strategic policy initiative for businesses that are committed to aligning their operations and strategies with ten uni- versally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption.

Local approach

Regarding sustainability, APM Terminals mentions on its website “our goal is to live up to stakeholders’ expectations.”

That sounds slightly vague, so what does APM Terminals mean? Tazelaar explains: “This statement is kept a little bit vague, as it differs per country what is important. Take child labour for example: in Rotterdam this is no issue at all, but in other countries it could very well be one. We are proud of our zero-emissions terminal and this has been our biggest challenge for Rotterdam, but if social living conditions or soil contamination is the biggest problem of a port, that will be more important and, therefore, a bigger challenge for us to be able to positively contribute to this problem than zero emissions.”

The standards in Rotterdam are already quite high, therefore, it was – and still is – a challenge for the new terminal at Maasvlakte 2 to take a leap forward, says Tazelaar: “We signed an agreement with the Port of Rotterdam Authority in 2006 regarding arrangements that were made with the neighbourhood regarding emissions, noise and lighting. We also committed to participate in the modal shift to make transport to the hinterland by rail and barge as appealing as possible.”

To comply to the ambition to be a sustainable business area, a lot was accomplished, Tazelaar explains: “We invested a lot in our new terminal, as we believe in the advantages of sustainability and the positive effect on the operational costs. When we started building the terminal, one of the three top priorities in our purchasing process was sustainability. You make one big decision and you will benefit from this decision for the next 20 to 30 years. However, we also decided to continue this vision after the construction phase was finished, and incorporate sustainability in our daily operations and way of doing business which enables us to make big steps forward.”

Ample sustainable initiatives

Next to the fact that all quay and yard cranes are powered electrically and 62 innovative electric battery-powered Lift-Automatic Guided Vehicles will transport containers to the yard from the quay, APMT MV II has a lot more in store regarding sustainability. Kierkels sums up some of the initiatives taken: “Our building is the first in the port that has a BREEAM-NL certificate (BREEAM stands for Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method, ed.). BREEAM-NL is an assessment method to determine the sustainability achievements of a building. To benefit the fauna in the area our building has openings to house bats, the building offers heat and cold storage to regulate the climate in the building. The heat of the data centres we use for the automation of our terminal, is stored in underground wells and in the winter this is used for heating.”

Another sustainable feature of the new terminal is the recycled material that is used for the largest part of the foundation of the terminal area. The electrical power the terminal needs,
is provided by environmentally-sustainable wind-generated electricity from European on- and offshore wind farms, supplied by Nuon Energy. The two-year contract was signed mid-December 2014.

Sustainability also relates to people: “When creating our remote control rooms, we involved research institute TNO”, Kierkels explains. “Crane cabins are mostly not the best workplace from an ergonomic perspective, crane operators have to bear shaking and vibrations, but the remote operators now have a healthier working environment, which makes that our people last longer in their jobs.” To further contribute to a healthier working environment, the company built an in-house fitness room for employees and the canteen offers healthy, attractively priced alternatives to the common food served in canteens of port companies. Tazelaar: “We want to offer our employees a healthy balance.”

The sustainable path is also carried through in the terminal’s personnel vehicle fleet. 35 e-NV200 completely electric cars from Nissan for the transportation of personnel and staff have been leased, partly vehicles with five seats to ferry operators to and from job locations with. What are Tazelaar’s thoughts about this?

“Currently, our shipping line customers are MSC and Maersk, but we also work with barge and rail operators, who work for shippers. And these freighters start to look at the impact of the whole within the terminal and partly two-seat- er vans for technical staff. Next to zero emissions, the cars also feature very low noise levels. APM Terminals will be among the very first users of the e-NV200 in the Netherlands.” According to Kierkels, the intention is to expand the fleet to 40 cars in the near future.

Preferably green

It is often stated that sustainability becomes more important to customers and they prefer green companies to do business with. What are Tazelaar’s thoughts about this?

“Currently, our shipping line customers are MSC and Maersk, but we also work with barge and rail operators, who work for shippers. And these freighters start to look at the impact of the whole transport process instead of only of their own production process and will therefore probably prefer work- ing with a green terminal.”

Kierkels agrees: “We recently conducted a survey on global level and the result showed that sustainability becomes more and more important to the end customer and their demands in this area are becoming stricter. With our zero-emission terminal, we certainly are prepared for the future.”

Another area we incorporate in our vision on sustainability is our sponsor policy”, Tazelaar continues. “In this policy, we completely focus on cooperation. We have a long-term cooperation with Het Zuid-Hollands Landschap (a foundation that focuses on the purchasing, development and manage- ment of nature reserves in the province of South-Holland, ed.) about the nature reserves around the port area. As a favour in return for adopting the area we have access to this area, for example for events. We also support the Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship in Rotterdam, an organisation that helps startups.”

“In the future, we want to be even more involved in our surroundings and we hope to see our efforts back in the appreciation of our clients and partners”, Tazelaar concludes. “Next to that, we will continue to stay on the outlook for technically smart, innovative solutions. We know that we can always do better, we are still a ma- jor energy consumer for example. How can we operate even smarter and more efficient in our daily busi- ness and how can we achieve this in cooperation with shipping lines: together we can figure out what we can do to reach this goal.”

“Next to that, we will continue to stay on the outlook for technically smart, innovative solutions. We know that we can always do better, we are still a ma- jor energy consumer for example. How can we operate even smarter and more efficient in our daily busi– ness and how can we achieve this in cooperation with shipping lines: together we can figure out what we can do to reach this goal.”

Smiling:“It is great to see that our efforts to be sustainable are not only a management toy, but everyone in the company is proud of it and carries out the message.”

Gail van den Hanenberg