Shoreham Port has won the ESPO Award 2025 for its strong commitment to fostering a supportive and inclusive work environment for women.
Shoreham Port won the ESPO Award 2025 for its project ‘Diversity & Inclusion Strategy’. The strategy, launched in 2020, has transformed the organisation by embedding inclusive values into its culture, governance, and business planning.
Women now comprise 50 per cent of the Executive team and 55 per cent of the Board, making the port a notable example of gender representation in leadership.
Initiatives such as flexible working, menopause awareness, and female-specific PPE have supported women’s development, while diversity-driven decision-making has boosted revenue by 52 per cent since 2020.
As the first UK port to achieve Women in Maritime Charter status and a founding member of the Diversity in Maritime Taskforce, Shoreham Port has been recognised for its commitment to equality in the maritime industry.
Out of the six submissions received this year, the projects of Port of Helsinki (Finland), Port of Rotterdam (The Netherlands), Port of Lisbon (Portugal), and Shoreham Port (United Kingdom) had been shortlisted for this 17th edition.
Looking back at the selection process in this 17th edition of the ESPO Award, the Chairman of the Jury, Eamonn O’Reilly, said: “The ESPO Award brought forward six very different projects from ports in six different countries trying to tackle the challenge of deep-seated gender imbalance in our industry.
“As ports become ever more complex, we need to attract talent from the widest possible pool. Correcting gender imbalance, and, more generally, breaking down other diversity barriers, is not only in the best interest of ports, it is also the right thing to do. Europe’s values and the needs of ports are in complete alignment.”
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The Board Chair of Shoreham Port, Catherine May, emphasised: “It is a real honour for a port of our scale to benchmark with the inspirational diversity work taking place at some of Europe’s leading maritime hubs.
“We are delighted that our cultural transformation at Shoreham Port has won this year’s ESPO Award. Five years into our programme, we’ve delivered huge change for working women across our port and community, and this recognition will inspire us to be even bolder as we enter the second half of our 10-year plan.”
For more information:
Shoreham Port – https://www.shoreham-port.co.uk/
ESPO – https://www.espo.be/
