South Africa’s National Ports Authority partnered with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR, South Africa) and the Delft University of Technology (Netherlands) to develop a novel Port Sustainability Performance (PSP) Index tailored to the South African context. The first step was to ensure global relevance. This was achieved through a critical review of 18 international port sustainability frameworks, identifying commonalities in performance indicators and associated outcomes. These were organized into the four widely accepted ‘pillars of sustainability’—governance, environmental responsibility, social equity, and economic viability—and aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to ensure global comparability.
To ensure local relevance and usability, direct engagement with port stakeholders was undertaken to verify the indicator set, adapt it to context-specific needs, and identify measurable, place-based targets. The PSP Index is calculated using a user-friendly spreadsheet platform and will be used by the Port of Ngqura to self-monitor sustainability performance without requiring complex technologies or external expertise. Results are visualized through radar charts showing performance across individual outcomes, sustainability pillars, and linked SDGs.
The opportunity to verify and apply the PSP Index in the Port of Ngqura arose as part of a pilot test under the UNEP Nairobi Convention’s Toolkit for Sustainable Port Development in a Blue Economy. This initiative, with CSIR as a technical lead, developed a selection of practical management tools to advance port sustainability in the West Indian Ocean. The PSP Index was applied in the Port of Ngqura during an in-person workshop attended by port officials from departments including legal, HR, environment, and engineering who collaboratively assessed sustainability performance using the tool. The outcome—a “Circle of Port Sustainability”—clearly illustrated areas of strength and weakness, will be used to prioritize actions and guide incremental progress toward greater sustainability, meaningful at the global level but also for communities at the local level. Importantly, the pilot demonstrated a replicable, locally grounded method for advancing sustainable port management. This has paved the way forward to its wider application in the region, as well as broader uptake the UNEP toolkit within the Western Indian Ocean.