The Ministry of Ports and Airports (MPor) is the Brazilian government agency responsible for overseeing and regulating the port and airport modalities of transport. Recently, the MPor has been working on developing and implementing policies and actions that align with the environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria, which are increasingly influencing the decision-making process of organizations and investors.
In an event organized by the National Civil Aviation Agency (Anac) on February 28, 2024, the executive secretary of the MPor, Mariana Pescatori, spoke about the importance of integrating the government, the private sector and the society in the construction of public policies that foster sustainable and innovative practices in the transport sector.
According to Pescatori, the MPor has some medium and long-term goals to create policies that encourage the best practices based on the ESG pillars. “We have to bring, within the modalities worked by the Ministry of Ports and Airports, the integration of teams and think, in a collaborative and integrated way, in the policy focused on sustainable actions that bring benefits to society”, she said.
The MPor has created a specific area to deal with sustainable and social policies, which is aligned with Anac and Antaq, the agencies that regulate the aviation and waterway modalities, respectively. The MPor also intends to present a national policy for the development of ESG practices by the end of the year.
One of the opportunities that the federal government has for the country is the large-scale production of green fuel, which is a low-carbon alternative for aviation and maritime transport. Pescatori said that the MPor, along with the Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME), needs to discuss a policy to promote the production of this fuel in Brazil, for domestic consumption and export. “I think we have this potential”, she said.
In the port area, the MPor is working on creating a carbon inventory to measure the level of emissions from the port assets, with the aim of defining decarbonization targets for the sector. The initiative seeks to guide the public and private operators on the government’s guidelines on what should be done to reduce the environmental impact of the port activities.
The MPor also counts on the collaboration of Antaq, which conducted a study on the impact of climate change on the waterway modality. “We have to prepare our assets and include, in the renewal of leases, actions that must be adopted by the companies to deal with climate change”, Pescatori said.
The event also had the participation of the president and the director of Anac, Tiago Pereira and Rogério Benevides, the minister of the Court of Accounts of the Union (TCU), Augusto Nardes, and the director-general of Antaq, Eduardo Nery. They discussed the challenges and practices of the public sector regarding the ESG criteria.