Online sustainability communication practices of European seaports

Abstract

Although ports have a direct and substantial impact on the social and physical environments in which they operate, studies on corporate sustainability focussing on ports are scant. This study investigates the under-researched topic of sustainability communication practices in the European seaport sector. Its purpose is to analyse to what extent, if any, are there differences in these practices. It seeks to capture the influence of national institutions and some port specific characteristics in sustainability reporting. Using content analysis, we analysed the extent and content of corporate sustainability information disclosed in the websites of 186 European seaports. We used an institutional theory framework, the Varieties of Capitalism approach, as lens of analysis. Multivariate ordinal regressions were used to analyse the influence of national institutions on disclosure. We found that sustainability communication varies from country to country not entirely in accordance with the Varieties of Capitalism framework. Despite the majority of ports identified by our study having already included corporate sustainability topics in their online communication practices, we conclude that there is still much work to be done.