Ashdod Port Company chooses to share with the public, similarly to the leading companies in the world, its various steps and objectives based on a managerial outlook of corporate responsibility – an outlook that takes into account the needs of all of the company's interest holders (customers, suppliers, employees, the public, etc.)
This is the third time that the Port Company is publishing a corporate responsibility report. The report's publication constitutes an additional important stage in the Port Company's activity over the years in the area of corporate responsibility. It was written as part of a comprehensive vision of responsible conduct, and it represents an expression of deep commitment to activity according to the existing fair principles, while taking into account the interests of its stakeholders.
In the report you can find information on the terms of employment of the port employees and the work environment; it presents steps that the Port Company took to create gender equality and occupational diversity; it details and describes topics of the company's supply line, steps the company took to increase safety at the port, the company's preparation for the era of competition in the ports, the activity in the area of the environment, the social initiatives that the Port Company is involved in and more.
In addition, in the report you can find information on a number of different steps that the company took in recent years to improve efficiency from an economic, service and environmental standpoint. For example:
- Setting up an appointment scheduling system for trucks – the system allows the port to prepare better and more efficiently for providing service to thousands of trucks that arrive at the port.
- Receiving new tugboats – integration of the new tugboats is part of the strategic development plan, to prepare the port for competition with new private ports and for the current trend in the global shipping market that is characterized by large ships.
- Steps to create gender equality and occupational diversity – in 2017 a tender was published for the position of a designated dockworker for the following populations: Women and members of the Druze community, the Arab population – including the Circassian population – and someone who either he/she or one of his/her parents were born in Ethiopia. In 2017 the port hired 51 employees overall, with 63% of them belonging to minority populations.
- The Port Company switched to electricity consumption from a source that is 100% natural gas and as such the Port Company is reducing its impact on the environment.
The report was written in accordance with the Global Reporting Initiative – the leading global standard for writing corporate responsibility reports, which provides a platform for developing and distributing guidelines for reporting on sustainable development in a way that is applicable all over the world. These guidelines are intended for use by organizations who would like to voluntarily report on the economic, environmental and social dimensions of their activates, their products and their services. The Port Company is one of the only government companies that receives the GRI approval for the report in the framework of the Materiality Disclosure Service.
This is the first year in which the port is reporting as part of the Corporate Responsibility Report on the commitment to advancing the UN's development goals In September 2015 the State of Israel adopted, along with the 192 UN member countries, the resolution to take part in the effort to achieve 17 new sustainable development goals known as SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals ). The goals address the global challenges in three dimensions – society, environment and economy, and they create a multisector and multinational framework with a shared language, which increases the chance of effective measurable implementation of the goals.
Orna Hozman-Bechor, Chairman of the Board: "Along with the challenges that Ashdod Port Company faces in a competitive environment and the preparation for the process that the State is leading to bring new competitors into the port sector, I believe that he area of corporate responsibility offers an additional economic growth engine and we will continue to publish corporate responsibility reports with the understanding that this is an important managerial tool that positions the company as responsible and "sustainable" and provides an additional way to have a more in-depth conversation and promote values of trust and transparency with our stakeholders".
Yitzchak Blumenthal, CEO of Ashdod Port Company: "The area of sustainability is constantly developing and the rules of the game require more of a focus on the topic of transparency in the conduct of business corporations, from the standpoint of regulatory entities and from stakeholders. We are the first port in Israel that is publishing a corporate responsibility report and in accordance with the above rules of the game we will continue to operate in this manner and to find a balance between business considerations and environmental-social considerations, with the objective of striving to invest and prove that the company will constantly improve its social and environmental performance, which aside from being praiseworthy, also provides an increasing economic value for the company and its stakeholders."
CEO of Maaleh, Momo Mahadab: "We congratulate you on publishing Ashdod's Corporate Responsibility Report for 2016-17! A government company has a dual purpose: Economic and social; the social aspect is expressed by a concept that the activity of the port addresses a vital and important public need for the State of Israel. Ashdod Port's vision of being Israel's leading port and one of the central and most advanced ports in the Mediterranean, also entails extensive social and environmental responsibility. And indeed, the values that were defined for implantation of the vision address this aspect. The company is one of the leading government companies in terms of commitment to managing with and embracing social responsibility, beyond the requirements of the law, and in recent years there is an observable methodical increase in the company's performance in Maaleh's ranking".
Since 1998 Maaleh has been working to advance topics of corporate responsibility and for the development of standards of responsible management in Israel, with the primary objective of increasing the awareness of the business sector regarding the importance of the subject of the general social fabric.