The premise is that sustainability, both social and environmental, and resilience have now become crucial factors for measuring the competitiveness of a port or a port system. The underlying concept is that these factors cannot constitute a real competitive advantage without the concrete support of port companies and operators.
In the Sala Ferretti of the Fortezza Vecchia, the Port Authority today brought together port operators, institutions, and the port community for an operational meeting on the update of the Sustainability Report, first drafted in 2022.
It was not a simple seminar organized by the entity of Palazzo Rosciano, but a true constructive dialogue with stakeholders for the sharing and joint validation of the sustainable development priorities of the Northern Tyrrhenian Sea Port System.
At the start of the conference, the President of the AdSP, Davide Gariglio, emphasized the strategic importance of an approach that puts people and their active participation in the formation of the decision-making processes of an entity, the Port Authority, which “is not a private company, but a piece of the State and the expression of a Community.”
“The AdSP,” stated Gariglio, “only makes sense if it has behind it the terminal operators, the technical-nautical services, the port companies, the services of general interest. I would like this method of participatory dialogue to be a method used stably and continuously for all the operational areas of the Entity.”
It is also for this reason that Gariglio wanted to announce the Stati Generali dei Porti, an initiative that starts from the observation of the scarcity of available economic resources to meet all the infrastructure modernization needs of the ports of the System: “We want to bring everyone to the table and discuss the priorities that will define the operational strategies of the port authority for the next four years,” he explained, emphasizing how this afternoon’s event is therefore in line with this modus operandi and with the idea “that we have a duty to leave to our children a world possibly better than the one we inherited from our fathers.”
During the seminar, Prof. Giovanni Satta, from the University of Genoa, highlighted the pioneering role taken on by the AdSP of Livorno: “By drafting the Sustainability Report, the AdSP set itself the goal not of producing another accounting document, but of building together with the port community a long-term vision that survives conjunctural challenges,” he stated, emphasizing how the Livorno Port Authority was one of the first entities in Italy to have the idea of introducing something it was not obliged to do by law: namely, to structurally collect the perception of stakeholders on the environmental, social, economic, and governance issues most relevant to the future of the port system (Satta spoke of the acronym ESG -Environmental, Social, and Governance – an approach that evaluates a company’s commitment to sustainability and ethics).
In the 2025 Sustainability Report, a special section will be created on the predictive impacts of major infrastructure works, starting with the Darsena Europa, defined as a real game changer for the national Port System.
Analyzing its sustainability scenarios is not for Satta a mere rhetorical exercise but an evaluation that will concern the future (the work will be completed in 2030). The objective is therefore not only to build a functional and efficient infrastructure from a transport perspective but also a sustainable one, capable of generating positive returns for the local community.
During the meeting, in which a draft of the Resilience Plan was also presented, constituting a first systematic reflection on the exposure of port infrastructures to adverse climate events, the working group from the analysis firm TIM10, coordinated by Satta himself, assisted the port operators and companies, delivering questionnaires to be filled out and guiding them in reading the main sustainability topics.
The results of this analysis will be presented and discussed at a dedicated public event, to be held next spring, during which the final reports and the indications contained within them will be shared and discussed further with the entire port community.
