Environmental protection at the Port of Vancouver
Protecting the environment is part of our mandate as a Canada Port Authority. To help us carry out this responsibility, we develop and implement a suite of innovative environmental programs that promote climate and air quality action and support healthy ecosystems across the Port of Vancouver and within the maritime sector. To develop and run these programs, our environmental specialists work collaboratively with:
- Port customers
- Industry
- Supply chain partners
- Scientists
- Governments
- Indigenous groups
- Non-government organizations
Environmental legislation and regulation
We follow established environmental legislation and regulatory requirements, supporting guidelines, and best practices. These include but are not limited to:
- Canada Marine Act
- Port Authorities Operations Regulations
- Fisheries Act
- Species at Risk Act
- Impact Assessment Act
- Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999
- Migratory Birds Convention Act
- Health Canada contaminated site guidelines
- Canadian Standards Association environmental auditing and environmental site assessment guidelines
- Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment environment quality guidelines
Environmental certifications
Green Marine
The Vancouver Fraser Port Authority is Green Marine certified, which means we demonstrate continued and measurable improvement on key issues related to:
- Climate and air quality
- Ecosystem protection
- Community relations
This voluntary program recognizes participants who meet or exceed standardized environmental best practices. As a Green Marine participant, we can measure our environmental practices and performance against those of other North American port authorities, ship owners, terminals, and shipyards. This helps us see where we are doing well and where there are opportunities for improvement.
Sustainable infrastructure
We work to integrate sustainable design and construction practices into the planning, design, and delivery of port authority-led infrastructure projects. To do this, we use industry-leading frameworks and rating systems for large projects, such as:
- Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure’s Envision framework
- Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)
For smaller projects, we follow our internal green infrastructure guidelines (GIG), derived from the Envision framework, with a target of implementing at least 50% of applicable guidelines on each project.
To learn more about our environmental protection and sustainability work, please contact environmentalprograms@portvancouver.com.