Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify and classify the various initiatives developed and implemented across the globe for the abatement of maritime air emissions. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, an extensive survey of various sources was conducted, including the official reports of international and regional institutions, government policy documents, port authority websites, classification society pages, private firms’ sites and the academic literature. The initiatives were then categorized in accordance with the classification of the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and analyzed using the SPSS Statistics software to give some insight into their frequencies and the interrelationships between them. Findings This exploratory review resulted in the establishment of a comprehensive global database of initiatives encouraged by the whole range of shipping stakeholders and decision-makers for the reduction of shipping air emissions. According to the findings, economic incentives that provide motivation for the adoption of less environmentally damaging practices are the most commonly used initiative, followed by infrastructure investments and informative policies. Research limitations/implications The results provide implications for further research that include an in-depth analysis of ports’ policies, as well as an evaluation of initiatives applied on a large scale to map their emissions reduction potential for shipping. Originality/value The main contribution of this paper is the identification and analysis of all the diverse initiatives implemented globally in a comprehensive way and its dealing with air pollution from shipping as a whole.

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