46 | Dublin Port Yearbook 2021
Testing the Water Dublin Port Company’s water management programme has saved millions of litres of water and millions of euro in water charges. Christy Foley, who headed up the programme until his retirement in December 2020, reflects on an extremely satisfying career. Dublin Port Company (DPC) has a long history of caring for the environment and the wildlife around the Port. DPC’s Environmental Management System (EMS) commenced in 2006, with a number of projects to ensure that activities within the company’s operation are conducted in an environmental way. Sustainability and environmental obligations are an intrinsic part of how DPC approaches port development, including dealing with past legacy problems. However, prior even to the commencement of the EMS, the company was cognisant of its environmental obligations. In 2003, the Board agreed that DPC should focus and invest more in good environmental practices
and management. This process of environmental continuous and incremental improvement would first concentrate on the practical and visible environmental impacts before proceeding to develop documented management systems and applying for external validation through ISO 14001 and PERS (Ports Environmental Review System) certification from EcoPorts, a network of ports and port related stakeholders sharing environmental experiences. The reason for this approach was to show by example and evidential impact both internally and externally to the port community that DPC were environmentally responsible and proactive and so gain the port community validation before reaching out to external bodies such as EcoPorts.
