A risk assessment mechanism for sustainable container shipping management
Sustainability, comprising social, economic, and environmental aspects, has been an increasing concern in human society. The shipping industry, as a traditional B2B industry, is investing more efforts towards sustainability. However, this transform towards sustainability can induce new risks which h...
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| Format: | Thesis-Doctor of Philosophy |
| Language: | English |
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Nanyang Technological University
2024
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/176500 |
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| Institution: | Nanyang Technological University |
| Language: | English |
| Summary: | Sustainability, comprising social, economic, and environmental aspects, has been an increasing concern in human society. The shipping industry, as a traditional B2B industry, is investing more efforts towards sustainability. However, this transform towards sustainability can induce new risks which have not been sufficiently addressed previously. Container shipping is a major sector of maritime shipping service, transporting finished and semi-finished goods in containers, which are closely related to people’s daily life. As service providers, container shipping companies need to satisfy their customers and stakeholders. However, the stakeholders’ demand is not only about on time and hassle-free transportation, but also more and more focusing on sustainability-related issues. Hence, research integrating sustainability and risk analysis in the field of container shipping is necessary. This report aims to establish a risk assessment mechanism of sustainable container shipping management. This report firstly determines the scope of sustainable shipping management in Chapter 2, where a unified framework of sustainable shipping management is established, comprising environmental, social, and economic components. Thereafter, Chapters 4 and 5 identify and quantify the sustainability risks. The results show that, externally, economic risks are the most threatening risks, followed by political risks, technical risks, legal risks, social risks, and environmental risks, while holistically, environmental risks worth the most attention. Besides, the customised risk quantification matrix developed in Chapter 5 shows that, in terms of container shipping sustainability risks, in general, environmental risks are the most prominent, followed by economic risks and social risks. Besides, the analysis of container shipping sustainability risks should focus more on the risks’ long-term likelihood of occurrence rather than short-term likelihood of occurrence. For severity of consequence, environmental impact is the most crucial criterion, followed by profitability impact, continuity impact, and social impact. Finally, Chapters 6 and 7 develop a holistic risk assessment mechanism which regards a container shipping company as an integrated system influenced by stakeholders, which allows the company’s decision maker to investigate the interrelationships between sustainable container shipping risks and develop resource allocation strategy for risk mitigation. The results show that container shipping companies need to get prepared to the likely profit decline and unsatisfied social sustainability by 2035. Besides, social and environmental risk factors are the most influential to a container shipping company’s overall sustainability performance. Moreover, a container shipping company’s overall sustainability performance is not necessarily improved when the cost in sustainability is increased. Hence, container shipping companies need to choose their sustainability risk mitigation strategy portfolios wisely and consciously. Confronted with all the exogenous and endogenous sustainability risks, the most cost-effective mitigation strategy portfolio is to implement internal control mechanisms. |
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