Value Creation through Corporate Sustainability in the Port Sector: A Structured Literature Analysis

Michael Stein and Michele Acciaro
Additional contact information
Michael Stein: Hapag-Lloyd Center for Shipping and Global Logistics (CSGL), Kühne Logistics University, Großer Grasbrook 17, 20457 Hamburg, Germany
Michele Acciaro: Hapag-Lloyd Center for Shipping and Global Logistics (CSGL), Kühne Logistics University, Großer Grasbrook 17, 20457 Hamburg, Germany

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 14, 1-17

Abstract: Corporate Sustainability (CS) in the port sector has emerged as an important driver behind strategy definition for port authorities globally. It has been argued that CS practices have the potential of delivering value for port users and, as such, grant port operators and port managing entities competitive advantages. There is, however, limited evidence behind this claim. The difficulty with collecting such evidence is that we lack measures of port value creation, and CS metrics have rarely been developed and applied in ports. This paper provides a framework for collecting empirical evidence aimed at assessing in what way CS can benefit port competitiveness. The framework is built on a systematic literature analysis of the past years. The literature analysis exceeds previous comparable contributions by its analytical detail and provides valuable new insights on sustainability in the maritime domain. The research indicates that the accurate measurement of CS initiatives in the port sector is urgent and meaningful. When appropriately measured, the value that CS can deliver to port users becomes apparent. This is, however, often created indirectly via branding, risk mitigation, etc. The paper contributes to academic knowledge as it is the first to develop a rigorous CS measurement framework usable for ports in terms of value.

Keywords: corporate sustainability; green ports; scale development; stakeholders; corporate social responsibility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/14/5504/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/14/5504/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:14:p:5504-:d:381773

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().