NORTHPORT WINS IAPH 2022 SUSTAINABILITY AWARD

KUALA LUMPUR, 18 May 2022 – Northport (Malaysia) Bhd (“Northport”), a member of MMC Group, has been announced as the winner of the International Association of Ports and Harbors (“IAPH”) 2022 Sustainability Award under the Health Safety and Security category. Northport, with its project titled “Journey Towards HSE Excellence” defeated two other finalists, Port of Montreal and Port of Amsterdam, in this category.

The announcement of the award winners was made during the Gala Dinner held in conjunction with the IAPH 2022 World Ports Conference on 17th May 2022 in Vancouver, Canada. The Chief Executive Officer of Northport, Dato’ Azman Shah Mohd Yusof was present to receive the award on behalf of the company from Mark Assaf, Chief, Human Resources Development Section, TrainForTrade, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

IAPH is a global alliance with members comprising of port authorities, port operators as well as port-related businesses from 87 different countries. Its member ports handle approximately one-third of the world’s sea-borne trade and well over 60% of the world’s container traffic.

“It is an honour and a great achievement for Northport to receive this recognition from an esteemed global institution such as IAPH, and being the first Malaysian port to receive the prestigious IAPH Sustainability Award. We would like to thank IAPH, the panel of experts and the general public who voted for us for recognizing our Journey Towards HSE Excellence,” said Dato’ Azman.

For this year’s IAPH Sustainability Awards competition, a total of 53 projects were submitted by 36 member ports from 26 countries to compete in six award categories namely, Climate and Energy, Environmental Care, Community Building,

Infrastructure, Digitalisation, and Health Safety and Security. All the projects were carefully evaluated and scored by an esteemed jury of nine independent experts from all over the world with diverse backgrounds including academia, non-governmental organisations, research institutes, media, shipping, and former port executive management.

The winners were determined by the panel of experts with 70% marks whilst the remaining 30% of the marks was from the public voting which was made through the World Ports Sustainability Program website from 21 March 2022 until 18 April 2022.

Northport’s journey towards achieving Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) excellence began in 2012 with the ‘Transformation’ phase to promote mindset and behavioral change among its employees. In 2016, the focus was shifted to ‘Effective Implementation’ to enforce all the action plans towards achieving HSE goals. In 2019, Northport embarked on ‘Sustenance and Continuous Improvement’ to strengthen the best HSE practices among its stakeholders. Finally, the ‘Business Resilience and Continuity’ phase was implemented in 2020 to reinforce the Company’s commitment to business continuity management in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Throughout the journey, we have embarked on various HSE initiatives which include the establishment of a Business Continuity Plan (“BCP”) to ensure adequate measures are in place for Northport’s operational and business continuity. We have also strengthened our port’s security with the use of drones and closed-circuit surveillance systems. Northport is the first port in Malaysia to use drones for security and surveillance purposes since 2019,” added Dato’ Azman.

Other notable initiatives include the introduction of HSE Omission Notification (“HON”) to enforce safety compliance on Northport’s employees and port users within the port premises as well as ‘You See You Act’ or UCUX mechanism to promote immediate incident reporting using social media platforms.

Northport’s HSE initiatives have been recognised in recent years with several awards and recognitions, including the Best Port Safety Management Award by the Ministry of Transport Malaysia in 2021, the National Occupational Safety and Health (NCOSH) Award in Business Services in 2020, as well as the Malaysian Society for Occupational Safety and Health (MSOSH) Silver Award in 2016 and Gold Award in 2017 and 2018.

Northport is also the first port in Malaysia to be awarded ISO 45001:2018 for Occupational Safety and Health in 2019 and ISO 37001:2016 for Anti-Bribery Management System in 2021, a testament and recognition of the Company’s commitment to the culture of excellence within the organisation.