The projects of the ports of Dover, Dublin, Stockholm and Union des Ports de France (UPF) have been shortlisted for the 11th European Sea Ports Organisation (ESPO) Award on Societal Integration of Ports.
The jury selected these four applications from a total of nine submissions. The theme of this year’s edition is “Transparency and the role of social media in reaching out to the local community”.
Using social media as a new way of communicating and demonstrating a high level of transparency about operational achievements, future strategies and environmental challenges and performance is becoming increasingly important for European ports who can only function and further develop if they receive the licence to operate from the local citizens. The ESPO Award 2019 will therefore award the port authority which has developed a successful strategy to reach out to the local community and is succeeding in directly communicating with the port citizens.
The winner of the 11th ESPO Award will be announced during the Award Ceremony taking place on 13th of November in Brussels. The shortlisted projects will be presented on the ESPO website in the running up to this event. All nine submissions will be presented in a special dedicated brochure to be published on 13 November.
The ESPO Award was established in 2009 to promote innovative projects of port authorities that improve societal integration of ports, especially with the city or wider community in which they are located. In this way, the Award wants to stimulate the sustainable development of European ports and their cities. Previous winners of the Award are the Port of Gijón (2009), the Port of Helsinki (2010), the Ports of Stockholm (2011), the Port of Genoa (2012), the Port of Antwerp (2013), the Port of Koper (2014), the Port of Dublin (2015), BremenPorts (2016), Guadeloupe Ports Caraïbes (2017) and Port of Rotterdam (2018).