Accelerating Suape’s ESG agenda

We are living in a crucial moment of planetary crisis of various orders and magnitudes, in which businesses must be firmly connected to the noblest commitments to regenerate the planet (environmental), society (social) and the capitalist system itself (governance).

Driving the ESG Agenda is an urgent and gigantic task that the corporate ecosystem has been focusing on with double energy in recent years. In other words, while making a profit, the company takes care of and makes the transition to regenerative transformations.

In the business world, the ESG agenda emerged in 2004 through the action of the United Nations (UN) Global Compact and the World Bank, with the Who Cares Wins initiative, aiming to direct resources to enterprises that are inspired by high principles for investing responsibly.

This initiative brought a bold and expanded perspective to the business environment, recognizing that stakeholders or interested parties are in a much broader and more complex scope. In addition to the usual customers, employees, suppliers, consumers and users, the new business equation invites us to create extraordinary value for the world and for society.

In this approach, companies strategically become agents of change, articulators of challenges and opportunities that generate long-term value, which positively impact new businesses, new social systems, and the biosphere, far beyond the obligation to comply with legal and institutional requirements. In short, it is: doing the right thing, doing it well, and doing it to positively impact reality.

The start to achieve this direction involves defining lofty purposes, a systemic vision, and awareness of interdependence. The most attractive thing about this ESG agenda is the fact that the sovereign “stakeholder” is the planet. It makes perfect sense, since it is unique. In theory, the promise of the ESG agenda is to profit by regenerating and regenerating by profiting. At the end of the day, it should provide more value far beyond the ordinary expectations.

And how to do all this? How to achieve this extraordinary value? We are experiencing an effervescence of actions, projects, ventures, behaviors, and commitments that make us hopeful. These are initiatives that were created specifically with this focus, and others that are adapting intensely, raising the bar on purposes and principles, and aspiring to radical transformations in search of extraordinary value.

A quick analysis of corporations shows that diversity and inclusion are vital allies of the ESG agenda. According to the study Diversity, equity and inclusion in organizations, which included the participation of 256 companies operating in Brazil, published by Delloite, in 2025, it was concluded that 81% of companies have affinity groups to reinforce diversity issues. And to enhance inclusion policies, organizations are implementing the concept of ESG. It is a natural and necessary symbiosis as companies strive more and more to reflect their customers and communities, and the planet itself.

On the other hand, a fundamental element in this process of ESG commitments refers to greenwashing (marketing that creates a positive and sustainable image, misleading consumers and investors). To this end, the rules of the Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM) - an agency of the Ministry of Finance - to regulate, monitor and develop this market niche, require the disclosure of ESG information by companies listed on the stock exchange. And the IFRS Sustainability Standards and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) are examples of initiatives that contribute to the legal security and sustainability of projects.

At the Suape Industrial Port Complex, the ESG agenda has been an important strategy in engaging internal and external audiences, bringing diversity and inclusion to the core of its implementation. The economic, financial, social and environmental figures of the territory of the state-owned port company in Pernambuco demonstrate in themselves the greatness of this diversity, signaling enormous challenges and opportunities to be interconnected in this journey.

There are more than 80 companies located in 12 economic segments; daily movement of millions of liters of fuel and gases; more than 25 thousand workers working in the port and in local industry; more than 17 thousand community residents (fishermen, family farmers, extractivists, artisans, quilombolas and microentrepreneurs); more than 10 thousand hectares of ecological reserve that shelter rare specimens of the wild fauna and flora of the Atlantic Forest, mangroves and restinga; several archaeological remains and natural parks; among others.

The role of the Suape company is to be a kind of animator, an inducer of business, procedures, agendas, forums, pacts, internal and external commitments, promoting engagement and creating connections that go beyond the formal, to encourage active participation and the search for better results as a whole. It is worth noting that the latest sustainability report of the Suape company, submitted in May to the State Court of Auditors (TCE), used the international GRI standard as a reference.

In this perspective, the month in which World Environment Day is celebrated (June 5), becomes another special moment to “Accelerate the ESG Agenda” with all stakeholders of the industrial port complex. With a dynamic and diverse program that involved everything from the release of wild animals in the Ecological Preservation Zone (ZEPC), with the participation of CPRH, to composting workshops and the production of native seedlings for the communities.

This important date in the international environmental calendar was also marked by lectures on sustainability, with a highlight being the keynote lecture given by renowned journalist Francisco José, on the theme “An incredible journey with nature and society”. The launch of the 5th edition of the Ocean-Friendly Terminal Seal, focusing on the ESG agenda for companies based in the Port of Suape, also brightened up the Environment Week at the state-owned port company.

All this diversity is certainly raw material and an ally in the development of an ESG agenda fully committed to generating extraordinary value in the territory.

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About the author:

Carlos Cavalcanti is currently the director of sustainability at the Suape Industrial Port Complex. He was secretary of environment and sustainability for Pernambuco. He held the position of CEO of the State Environmental Agency (CPRH). He chaired the State Environmental Council. He currently coordinates several socio-environmental projects and the energy transition of the Suape Complex