The Foundation, created in 1999 to help ports and the port industry share their environmental experience, praised Nicola for her 'outstanding contribution' to the development of EcoPorts whilst making her the first person to receive the EcoPorts Professional Award.

Nicola said, 'The ports industry is taking good environmental practice increasingly seriously. Ports can apply to be assessed for full ISO 14001 accreditation, an international environmental management standard that means they must meet and maintain extremely high levels of environmental performance.

'The guidance is designed to help ports, which may not be ready or have the resources for this level of assessment, to improve the environmental quality of their day to day operations as quickly and easily as possible.'

Nicola's award comes as the PLA marks 10 years of meeting the strict ISO 9001 standards for management quality.

The PLA's director of technical and engineering services, Jeremy Smith said, 'The PLA is one of the standard setting ports in the environmental and quality arenas. We not only work hard to improve our own performance, but we are looking constantly for ways to share our experience with others.'