Environmental Guidelines for Facilities Storing Bulk Quantities of Petroleum Products & Fuels. Validating Effluent Bioassays for Assessment of Hydrocarbon Ecotoxicity. Sustainability reporting.

New Environmental Guidelines for Facilities Storing Bulk Quantities of Petroleum, Petroleum Products and Other Fuels - Ms Katy Baker

The need for good environmental performance has always been a requirement within the oil industry. Moreover, actions to minimise the release of hydrocarbons to the environment can also lead to improvements in safety performance, healthier working conditions for employees and more cost-effective operations. The operation of high hazard industries associated with fuel storage and distribution was put under the spotlight after the Buncefield Incident. Learning from the event was documented widely, including in the UK Health and Safety Executive HSE Process Safety Leadership Group (PSLG) Final Report: Safety and Environmental Standards for Fuel Storage Sites published in 2009.

Validation of Whole Effluent Bioassays for Assessment of Hydrocarbon Ecotoxicity - Mr Mike Spence

There is increasing recognition by regulators that there are limitations to the substance-specific approach for assessing and controlling the environmental fate and effects of effluents. As the number of compounds of interest increases, this method becomes increasingly time consuming and costly. Consequently, many regulators are seeking more holistic techniques such as whole effluent assessment (WEA) to supplement existing approaches.

Sustainability reporting, a tool to evaluate monitoring results and improve performance - Mr Eric de Deckere

The economic crisis in 2008 challenged the private and public partners in the Port of Antwerp to make up a strategic plan to become more resilient. A general assembly of more than 600 people representing the port community agreed about a vision for 10 themes eg. liquid bulk, logistics, trade facilitation, mobility, but also indicated that sustainability should be integrated into the strategic plan. It was then decided to first map performance of the port regarding people, planet and prosperity, which resulted in a first sustainability report in 2012. A list of indicators, based on the guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative, were presented and used as a input for an intensive stakeholder process. The results were discussed among the different sectors in the port and new ideas for measuring and improving performance were launched.