Flinders Port Holdings (FPH) has built on its strong record of sustainable port related infrastructure and services following the launch of its first group-wide sustainability plan, underpinning sustainability policy and centralising coordination, oversight, and delivery of all its work in that space.
The sustainability plan is centred around FPH’s material sustainability themes and their impacts on the environment, people, community, and responsible practice.
Since they were first set in 2022, FPH has evolved its climate commitments to be more ambitious and consistent with global and sector specific policy.
Along with its emission reduction ambitions, FPH is gaining ground towards increased female representation, rising to 15.9 per cent of its workforce in FY25. There has also been an increase in women holding leadership positions.
Marnie Hope, Group Sustainability Manager at FPH, told Green Review that integrating sustainability into FPH’s corporate strategy meant embedding it into all decision-making, including operational planning, and all of its systems, as part of its value creation model.
“Sustainability is core to our business and fundamental to this is how we collaborate with community, decarbonise our business, minimise harm and build resilience.”
She also noted the strong role data and technology played in building out optimisation and efficiency.
Hope said: “Our progress is making firm commitments on credible action and reporting back to shareholders and customers on outcomes achieved.
“The journey has been uplifting and added clear and targeted capability to FPH. We create value through delivering meaningful impact on what we know is important to our people, the supply chain, our customers, and shareholders.”
She explained the upcoming review of FPH’s sustainability plan needs to be realistic about what can be achieved within certain timeframes – with a plan for success.
“Being a hard-to-abate sector means some of the planning takes time before we see outcomes, and how we are going to transition, we have to be patient around technology solutions that aren’t available yet.
One of our major sources of emissions is from shipping and there are complexities around low carbon fuel sources but provides opportunities for industry collaboration. Another key consideration will be how we power our operations andoptions for renewable energy and energy storage.”
FPH have Kone cranes Noell diesel battery hybrid straddle carriers as part of its emissions reduction plan,as they consume 36 per cent less fuel compared to older models and offer both operational and safety benefits.
Hope said FPH had made good progress with its fleet by purchasing electric and hybrids across passenger vehicles, including utes.
She said: “We recently purchased electric forklifts forFlinders Warehousing & Distribution and are progressing the continued rollout of additional hybrid straddles.“There are further benefits to our staff with this rollout, around operational efficiency, safety and maintenance.”
In FY25, FPH introduced pilot vessel PV Spencer which has a pod drive propulsion system and fuel-efficient smart engines and has been designed to accommodate future zero-emission technologies.
The pilot vessel was designed in collaboration with HartMarine to improve safety, technology, and sustainability. Another pilot boat will be added to the fleet in FY26, producing positive feedback from staff regarding their driving capability.
The total emissions reduction achieved with the new pilot boats is still being assessed, but the various impacts to consider include less fuel consumption, less drag from the design around silicon anti-biofouling, and a reduction in the boat’s weight.
Another recent sustainability initiative undertaken byFPH was the purchase of 712 hectares of land to reforest through carbon farming, contributing positively towards FPH’s climate commitments and nature plans. The company has identified and assessed nature-related issues, risks and opportunities and has commenced doing benthic (underwater) assessments at regional ports.
FPH also partnered with Green Adelaide and Birdlife to monitor and support the vulnerable Fairy Tern, which is local to the area.
Last year, FPH executed new financing arrangements to diversify and expand its available debt markets and capacity, providing the funding capacity to support strategic initiatives and sustaining capital requirements, and deliver a material reduction in its cost of debt.
The majority of the new financing arrangements were executed as sustainable financing with sustainability goals, further committing FPH to the realisation of improvements across its sustainability objectives, including decarbonisation, gender diversity, and mental health.
Additionally, FPH partnered with the Clean EnergyFinance Corporation (CEFC) to establish a $70-million ‘Use of Proceeds’ facility, marking the CEFC’s first green financing in the maritime sector in Australia, and secured $280 million in sustainability-linked bank loans that tie funding costs to achieving key sustainability performance targets.
The port conducted its first climate-related risk and opportunity assessment in the last year. The data will be integrated into asset management, financial and resilience planning, and also used to inform climate-related disclosures for future reporting.
Hope highlighted the importance of integrity, responsible business practices and transparency for FPH’s sustainability effort to maintain trust in and around the communities in which we operate. She said: “We know its importance for our people who work at FPH, customers and shareholders.”