A Gateway to Sustainable Growth

Joe O’Neill, Chief Executive, Belfast Harbour.

Joe O’Neill, Chief Executive, Belfast Harbour talks to Ambition about investing in the sustainable future of the city.

Reflecting on the challenges of 2021 to date, and as the economy starts to recover from the impact of the pandemic, it has been encouraging to see a renewed and heightened focus in business and government to build back more responsibly.

While people and businesses hope many aspects of our lives will soon go “back to normal”, it is clear that as we look ahead to the COP26 global climate conference in Glasgow, we all need to take action now to build sustainability goals into our daily lives.

As a Trust Port, doing business responsibly is at the heart of our decision making. The Trust Port model means every penny of our net earnings is reinvested into sustainably developing the port and estate for the benefit of everyone in Northern Ireland. This means that a socially responsible approach to business is firmly embedded within our strategic ambitions for the port and estate.

A key pillar of Belfast Harbour’s A Port for Everyone strategy is to become a leading Green Port and one of Northern Ireland’s most sustainable developers with the ambition, amongst other things, to digitise, decarbonise and decentralise our energy usage.

As such we have pledged to achieve net zero carbon emissions from our operations by 2030, to reduce pollution, and to protect and enhance our natural environment. And we’re on track to decarbonize activities in the estate, including the acquisition of electric vehicles and the purchase of all electricity from low carbon sources.

There’s still a long way to go however, so we’re working with external partners to embed this approach to environmental sustainability

into all aspects of our business. We have committed to deliver wide-ranging targets, as set out in our recently signed prosperity agreement with the Northern Ireland Environment Agency.

RECOVERY

We believe that prioritising our sustainability and responsible business goals are an integral part of helping to drive the long-term economic growth and recovery in the region.

In expanding our long-standing partnerships with local communities, 2021 saw the launch of the Belfast Harbour Community Awards Fund, aimed at supporting grassroots organisations that are positively impacting their communities as they recover from the pandemic. Through this new fund we have so far supported 12 community groups and plan to launch a second appeal for applications in the autumn.

Though life is still far from normal, the team at Belfast Harbour – and the entire port community – continues to work hard to mitigate any COVID-19 related disruption, with trade through the port flowing at more or less pre-COVID levels.

In fact, 23.5 million tonnes of cargo passed through the port during 2020, compared with 24 million tonnes a year earlier, and while that was helped by stockpiling linked to the UK’s exit from the EU, it provides a strong signal that Northern Ireland businesses have faced new challenges with their customary resilience.

INVESTMENT

In the last financial year, over £43 million was invested in port facilities and estate projects, including major upgrades to Belfast Harbour’s ferry and container terminals.

On the estate, construction is nearing completion on City Quays 3, a 16-storey, £50 million investment, which will be Northern Ireland’s largest Grade A office building, while construction is also underway on another £25 million office building known as Olympic House, which we are co-developing with Titanic Quarter. Both buildings are being constructed to the BREEAM Excellent accreditation standard underpinning our Green Developer ambitions.

In the past 10 years, Belfast Harbour has invested over £330 million in port infrastructure and estate regeneration and, at year end, we had committed to more than £87 million of strategically significant, self-funded projects that will help deliver our vision for the future.

We have already announced plans to expand Belfast Harbour Studios and hope to soon appoint contractors to begin that work, having secured planning permission for the £45m project earlier in the year.

We were delighted to welcome ‘The School for Good and Evil’ to Belfast Harbour Studios this year, which was the first production from Netflix to film in Northern Ireland. We believe that creating the additional studio space will support further growth in the local film industry, allowing it to tap into the evergrowing demand for high quality film and television production space and generate quality jobs and economic growth.

We are also excited to be participating in a project – alongside Titanic Quarter Limited, Lacuna Developments and Watkin Jones – to bring an exciting new residential neighbourhood to Titanic Quarter. If approved, the proposed 700 homes will contribute greatly to Belfast City Council’s target to increase the number of people living in the city centre.

FORWARD INTO 2022

We have ambitious plans for the year ahead and will continue to work with our customers and key partners to ensure we are playing our part in driving the growth and recovery of our local economy. The slight drop in overall revenues we saw in 2020 largely reflected the impact that the pandemic had on tourism and leisure traffic, notably from cruise ships, and the partial closure of our AC by Marriott Hotel and NCP multi-storey car park.

It will take some time before cruise, tourist and leisure activities return to pre-crisis levels but as restrictions on the movement of people and leisure travel have eased, we have already started to see passenger traffic on the port’s ferry services increasing over the summer and a resumption of cruise ship visits.

After a break of 18 months, we welcomed our first cruise ship in mid-June following a lot of preparation work alongside our Cruise Belfast partners, Visit Belfast, industry operators and relevant agencies to develop robust health and safety protocols. All of the 35 vessels that have visited so far are following a UK itinerary and only stopping for one day visits; however, as restrictions lift further and it is safe to do so, we hope to be able to welcome international cruises again soon.

As with our work as part of Cruise Belfast, we plan to continue to work in partnership with all of our tenants, customers, stakeholders and partners as we sustainably develop the port and estate and, in doing so, contribute to economic development and inclusive growth.

The Harbour Estate is at the heart of Belfast’s new Innovation District and, as part of the coalition of partners developing Innovation City Belfast, we are working closely with Belfast City Council, Catalyst, Invest NI and the two universities to promote inclusive growth and champion Belfast’s innovation pipeline to global audiences and investors.

Strategic partnerships such as this will help us to achieve our goals to become a world leading regional port by growing economic activity, adopting new smart technology and upholding the highest environmental standards as a clean, green port.

As we deliver on the Port for Everyone strategy, Belfast Harbour is more committed than ever to making a positive and sustainable impact on our economy and our society.

“In the past 10 years, Belfast Harbour has invested over £330 million in port infrastructure and estate regeneration and, at year end, we had committed to more than £87 million of strategically significant, self-funded projects that will help deliver our vision for the future.”