ESG practices in focus, check out the Wilson Sons Sustainability Report

ESG practices have gained relevance in the corporate environment because they represent an approach focused on assessing whether a company’s operations are sustainable, socially responsible and correctly managed.

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The acronym ESG stands for Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance. Therefore, the concept is used to demonstrate how much an organization cares about people, looks for ways to reduce impacts on the environment, and adopts good governance practices — concepts that are increasingly relevant to investors and consumers.

Due to the importance of the topic, Wilson Sons published its 1st Sustainability Report, focusing on good ESG practices. If you want to know about the information contained in the study, continue reading this post and check out the details!

What is the purpose of the report?

Wilson Sons, the largest integrated port and maritime logistics operator in Brazil, with more than 180 years in the market, released the first comprehensive report dedicated to the company’s sustainability actions — 6 months after the company’s shares began to be traded on the B3 Novo Mercado (PORT3).

The report demonstrates the company’s commitment to ensuring the transparency of its activities related to social, environmental and governance practices, focusing specifically on the theme of sustainability.

In this sense, maritime transport, responsible for 90% of the global trade flow, is the least intensive in relation to carbon (CO2) emissions, when compared to rail and road modalities.

In addition, the modality stands out due to its relevant capacity and lower variable costs, allowing economies of scale, connections and great energy efficiency.

What were the environmental policies and practices adopted by Wilson Sons?

Wilson Sons selected some environmental issues as the most important to the company. They are:

• energy;
• emissions and climate change;
• impact on marine ecosystems;
• solid waste and water resources.

To reduce the impact which its activities generate on the environment, the company seeks to identify opportunities for decarbonization of the energy matrix. Therefore, since 2014, the organization has made voluntary publications about its Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) Inventory.

In 2021, Wilson Sons was certified with the gold seal of the GHG Protocol — a Brazilian program that aims to support and encourage companies to prepare and publish inventories of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

To foster the low-carbon economy, Wilson Sons started to adopt several measures and technologies to reduce fuel consumption and emissions from its tug fleet — the main emission party of greenhouse gases in the company.

Among the actions taken, we can highlight the incentive programs for crews that exceed the operational efficiency goals, the creation of algorithms for the optimization of dispatches, among other relevant measures. Find out more details about them in the next few topics!

Construction work for new tugboats

Wilson Sons has invested in the construction of tugboats with a new hull design, which ensures more operational efficiency with lower fuel consumption.

Thus, the new tugboats bring for the first time to Brazil, an innovative concept for the hull of tugs which allows a decrease of up to 14% in greenhouse gas emissions, when compared to the previous technology, due to the greater hydrodynamic efficiency.

Activities of the only Tugboat Operations Centre (COR) in Brazil which was created more than 10 years ago, has always sought to contribute effectively to the control and efficiency of the movement of the 80 tugboats in the fleet.

With it, displacements are only made when it is, in fact, necessary — always with the ideal equipment and at the appropriate speed, to increase energy efficiency and consequent emission control.

COR started to contribute even more to an operation with a lower fuel consumption because of the development of a module that uses Artificial Intelligence.

Identification of climate change

In another demonstration of commitment to reducing emissions, the company started to include in its risk matrix the identification and management of threats and opportunities related to climate change.

Partnerships

Wilson Sons evaluated the opportunities and risks related to the low-carbon economy, analysing current practices, scenarios and future projections for the company’s business, according to the TCFD (Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures) methodology.

There is also the planning and establishment of various energy purchase and consumption strategies in order to find, replicate and promote projects that enable operational efficiency gains from the use of saved energy. Therefore, it was established in a recent partnership with SINAI Technologies, the development of a marginal cost curve of carbon abatement.

Solid waste management

Solid waste management is also relevant at Wilson Sons, which in turn seeks to promote recycling and reuse to mitigate pollution.

To this end, employee awareness initiatives were implemented, such as the recycling of uniforms, which were transformed into blankets for homeless people and pets. In 2021, the project produced 510 recycled blankets.

Water resource management

Water resources are one of our most valuable assets and, therefore, this is one of Wilson Sons’ fronts of action. The company develops initiatives for the reuse and collection of rainwater.

Over the last year, more than 4,000 cubic meters of water have been reused in container terminals, offshore support bases and logistic centres. In addition, to manage water efficiently, the Salvador Container terminal has a remote monitoring system that allows the control of the volume of consumption and possible leaks.

Social and environmental responsibility

In 2021, Wilson Sons invested almost R$ 4 million, considering direct funding and sponsorships via incentive laws, in different social and environmental responsibility projects. In total, more than 250 thousand from different regions of the country benefited.

In addition, the company also played a relevant role in generating employment and income, in an especially delicate year of the labour market. To this end, the company developed actions aimed at the well-being of its employees, such as the adoption of practices to encourage further education, and has achieved the Great Place to Work certification, being considered one of the best places to work.

Occupational Health and Safety Awards

Issues related to Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) are managed by Wilson Sons in a strategic manner, since they are considered fundamental requirements for the sustainable development of the business.

Due to the relevance of the subject to the company’s strategy, Wilson Sons received awards in the last 5 editions of the DuPont Award for Occupational Health and Safety Management in Brazil.

The company works to prevent accidents at work, and the organization registered an 87% drop in the rate of lost time injuries between 2011 and 2021 — which proves the evolution of the safety culture among employees.

These performance indexes are constantly monitored so that processes are constantly improved, as well as to prevent future accidents.

Enhanced compliance mechanisms

Ethics is an essential precept established by Wilson Sons with its various stakeholders. As a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact, the company is committed to fighting corruption in all its forms.

To this end, the company seeks to strengthen its compliance mechanisms and invest in initiatives that promote public awareness about the importance of fighting corruption.

Among the effective mechanisms used by the company we can mention the independent ethics channel in which all stakeholders can inform about unethical behaviour and situations. The report also points out the records made via the channel during the period, the corrections adopted and the result of the evaluations.

Innovation

The maritime port sector is expected to undergo a transformation in the coming years, and Wilson Sons is already preparing for this occurrence, combining technological advance in ports and vessels with the growing demand of the sector to become more sustainable.

According to projections for the industry, revenues from shiptechs (maritime technology companies) are expected to triple in the next 10 years, also increasing the participation of startups in this area.

Since Wilson Sons is a company that values innovation, it entered the Ranking 100 Open Startups 2021, which highlights the collaborative work in innovation between companies and startups, being awarded the second place in the Transport and Logistics category.

The publication of the Sustainability Report reflects real impacts and effective management, being another step towards the increasingly consistent disclosure of the company’s economic, environmental, social and governance performance.

To learn more about Wilson Sons — a nationwide company with more than 180 years of experience and offering complete solutions to more than 5,000 customers from various segments of the economy — visit our website.

And to know in detail all the company’s sustainability actions presented in this article, access the Sustainability Report in full!