The Port of Brighton has be­come the first port in T&T—and the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com)—to achieve Eco­Ports PERS (Port En­vi­ron­men­tal Re­view Sys­tem) cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

In a news re­lease, the La Brea In­dus­tri­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (Labid­co), con­firmed the port re­ceived the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in De­cem­ber 2024.

The re­lease said, "The Port of Brighton now joins a glob­al net­work of 66 Eco­Ports-cer­ti­fied fa­cil­i­ties. This cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, award­ed by the ECO Sus­tain­able Lo­gis­tics Chain Foun­da­tion (ECOSLC) un­der the Eu­ro­pean Sea Ports Or­gan­i­sa­tion (ES­PO), high­lights the port's vol­un­tary ad­her­ence to strin­gent en­vi­ron­men­tal stan­dards that ex­ceed reg­u­la­to­ry re­quire­ments. It al­so un­der­scores the Port of Brighton’s com­mit­ment to en­vi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship and sus­tain­abil­i­ty."

Labid­co ex­plained, "Eco­Ports PERS is the on­ly port-spe­cif­ic en­vi­ron­men­tal and sus­tain­abil­i­ty stan­dard tai­lored to the unique op­er­a­tions of ports. It in­te­grates es­tab­lished frame­works such as ISO 14001, while ad­dress­ing the spe­cif­ic chal­lenges and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of the mar­itime in­dus­try. The cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process al­so in­volves an in­de­pen­dent as­sess­ment con­duct­ed by Lloyd’s Reg­is­ter, LRQA, Nether­lands (Lloyd’s Reg­is­ter Qual­i­ty As­sur­ance)."

The cer­ti­fi­ca­tion will re­main valid for two years, af­ter which it will be re­assessed to en­sure con­tin­ued com­pli­ance with evolv­ing laws, reg­u­la­tions, and in­ter­na­tion­al cli­mate ob­jec­tives.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young hailed the achieve­ment, say­ing, "This cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is a mile­stone, not on­ly for Labid­co but for Trinidad and To­ba­go. By achiev­ing Eco­Ports ac­cred­i­ta­tion, LABID­CO has set a re­mark­able stan­dard of vi­sion­ary lead­er­ship in in­te­grat­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in­to in­dus­tri­al op­er­a­tions. This achieve­ment paves the way for re­gion­al ports to adopt more sus­tain­able prac­tices, en­sur­ing a green­er and more re­silient fu­ture for the en­er­gy and mar­itime sec­tors."

Chair­man of Labid­co Dr. Joseph Khan said, “The re­ceipt of this cer­ti­fi­ca­tion po­si­tions Labid­co and the Port of Brighton at the fore­front of sus­tain­able port op­er­a­tions in the re­gion, sig­nalling a strong com­mit­ment to en­vi­ron­men­tal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and in­no­va­tion. It al­so reaf­firms the com­pa­ny’s role as a leader in sus­tain­able port man­age­ment. I com­mend the team for their out­stand­ing work and vi­sion in set­ting a new bench­mark for the in­dus­try.”

Eco­Ports-cer­ti­fied fa­cil­i­ties are of­ten de­scribed as "green ports," based on a bench­mark in sus­tain­able port de­vel­op­ment by adopt­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly prac­tices, min­i­miz­ing eco­log­i­cal im­pacts, re­duc­ing car­bon emis­sions and en­sur­ing com­pli­ance with in­ter­na­tion­al en­vi­ron­men­tal stan­dards. Green ports, the Labid­co re­lease ex­plained, would play a vi­tal role in ad­vanc­ing glob­al sus­tain­abil­i­ty goals and en­hanc­ing the port’s cred­i­bil­i­ty, as they align their op­er­a­tions with in­ter­na­tion­al frame­works such as the Unit­ed Na­tions Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Goals and the Eu­ro­pean Union’s Green Agen­da.