The Importance of Emerging Technologies to the Increasing of Corporate Sustainability in Shipping Companies

Abstract

Corporate sustainability is understood as the integration of economic, environmental, and social considerations into the company’s mission. In the shipping market, it allows for a wide spectrum of integration of corporate management areas: shipowners’ financial condition, environmental protection, work safety, seafarers’ health, and stable cooperation with shippers. The aim of this paper is to create a deeper understanding of how and which emerging technologies accelerate sustainability strategy of shipping companies. Three research perspectives have been adopted. The first one is aimed to examine shipowners’ approach to emerging technologies as a tool to improve their corporate sustainability performance. The second perspective gives a view of trends in the development of emerging technologies in shipping and how they related to sustainability. Taking the third perspective, we examine how effective, in the opinion of future seafarers, the use of emerging technologies is in improving corporate sustainability of shipping companies. The research methods for each of the perspectives are, respectively, a sustainability reports and ships’ registry data analysis, a patent analysis, and a questionnaire survey analysis. The results prove that shipowners use not only certain management practices, but also new technologies to enhance corporate sustainability. The transition to sustainable shipping will continue for many years to come and all shipping companies will have to become part of it.