Seaport CSR: innovation for economic, social and environmental objectives

Abstract

Purpose Seaports have gained importance in recent years, but they have also featured fundamental changes. For example, societal and environmental pressures have increased. As a consequence of these pressures, corporate social responsibility has gradually been introduced also in the ports sector. One of the impacts is at the level and type of innovation. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the way that corporate social responsibility emerges among company goals in seaports and the extent to which innovation initiatives respond to the goals raised. Design/methodology/approach To reach its objective, the paper applies a two-step approach. Starting from scientific literature, it drafts an initial set of port-related company goals. This list is validated through a Delphi approach. In a second step, the paper applies a scoring of how port innovation initiatives respond to the raised goals. Furthermore, it determines the degree of homogeneity of both the objective scoring and the innovation scoring, and those two are then compared. Findings The paper derives how relevant a specific innovation action is to a specific company goal, and to which extent it actually contributes to achieving the goal. The most relevant objectives turn out to be turnover and CO2 emissions. It furthermore seems that the social objectives are best achieved. Best achievable seem the “dangerous goods” and “training”. Practical implications The results give insight into which socially important objectives need public support, and which initiatives are to be stimulated. Originality/value The results allow making an initial typology of actions and conditions that contribute to innovation “success”.

The Role of Seaports in Green Supply Chain Management: Initiatives, Attitudes, and Perspectives in Rotterdam, Antwerp, North Sea Port, and Zeebrugge

“…), see e.g. [45] on Australian seaports and [46] on how port innovation initiatives respond to the CSR goals; • Implement sustainability reporting at company, port authority or port industry level: the port industry is adopting this sort of reporting to conceptualize sustainability and as an essential basis for the license to operate ( [47]. Mainly larger port authorities have started producing sustainability reports [48].…”

Is the corporate social responsibility–innovation link homogeneous?: Looking for sustainable innovation in the Spanish context

“…1087). This approach, which is largely accepted by both practitioners and academics (i.e., Bohlmann et al, 2018;Chowdhury, Choi, Ennis, & Chung, 2018;Martínez-Conesa et al, 2017;Sarkar & Searcy, 2016;Vanelslander, 2016) "gives equal weight to economic, environmental, and social dimensions" (Hussain, Rigoni, & Orij, 2018;p. 411).…”

“…This paper analyses whether the link between innovation and CSR is homogeneous or, on the contrary, whether it is contingent on both the type of innovation and the CSR dimension. Second, to analyse contingencies on the relationship between innovation and CSR, we use the broadly accepted view of the "triple bottom line" (Bohlmann, Krumbholz, & Zacher, 2018;Martínez-Conesa, Soto-Acosta, & Palacios-Manzano, 2017;Vanelslander, 2016), which covers three core fields: economic, social, and environmental. Although there is no consensus about the best definition of the CSR concept, there is some degree of agreement about its multidimensional nature (Anser et al, 2018;Gallagher, Hrivnak, Valcea, Mahoney, & LaWong, 2018;Ratajczak & Szutowski, 2016) and how CSR allows firms to show their commitment to economic, social, and environmental development (Guerrero-Villegas, Sierra-García, & Palacios-Florencio, 2018).…”

Corporate social responsibility of the Port of Gdynia

“…11 HSEQ Health, Safety, Environment & Quality. 12 ISO 50001 is a standard relating to energy management. 13 EMAS (Eco-Management and Audit Scheme) is a system of environmental management.…”

“…In discussing corporate social responsibility, the literature in the past seemed to pay far less attention to seaports than other economic sectors [12]. Even today, the interest in CSR -though increased -is still fragmentary.…”