Responsible port innovation in the Dutch delta: The Maasvlakte 2 port extension project

The challenges world ports face require new technological and institutional approaches of development and exploitation, aimed at promoting and implementing ecologically and socially sustainable port innovation and operation trajectories. ‘Sustainable development’ is a broad term covering a diversity of values, in specific cases usually variations on and aspects of the well-known key concepts of People, Planet and Profit. This raises the question of how to deal with diverging, sometimes competing and even conflicting values in innovation and development processes. Another question with sustainable development is how to bring it about. This chapter explores and refines a new approach to tackle these issues: responsible innovation. It develops the outset of a strategy for it, emphasising the use of stakeholder involvement and process management methods, in addition to design and expert methods. This will be done in relation to a particular port extension project: the Maasvlakte 2 project, partly carried out, partly still in execution. The focus is on the lessons to be learned, both for practitioners and academicians.