Investigating the Effectiveness of the Maritime Regulatory Regime to Address a Socially Responsible Shipping Industry: A Content Analysis Study

Abstract

The introduction of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in 2015, has transformed the approach of public and private entities to address environmental, social and economic challenges. As result, new governance and management insights are sought, among them corporate social responsibility (CSR), which is increasingly seen as a self-regulating means to help organizations meet multifaceted challenges. With regard to shipping, global developments have called for a blueprint to facilitate industry's transition to a more sustainable pathway. However, CSR applicability in the maritime business is relatively recent and has been mainly viewed as a voluntary and beyond regulatory compliance notion. Among these shifts, this study explores the effectiveness and extent to which the maritime regulatory regime has addressed CSR topics. A case study strategy and content analysis method is employed. In turn, ISO 26000 social responsibility standard employed as the guiding paradigm to identify applicability of CSR norms within selected maritime legislation. Findings revealed a satisfactory coverage by the maritime regime of CSR issues falling under the scope of human rights, labor, the environment and organizational governance subjects. Though, it seemed to lag behind in subjects situated within the array of fair operating practices, consumer treatment and community involvement.

Sustainable development goals and corporate strategy: A map of the field

“…On one hand, multi‐criteria decision making (MCDM) techniques are also used in the field of sustainable performance, such as the work of Wang et al (2020). On the other hand, Gallardo‐Vázquez et al (2021) or Borges et al (2022) address performance towards sustainability, concluding that not all good business practices contribute to all the SDGs (Ylönen & Salmivaara, 2021), nor do they do so in the same way, which makes it difficult to evaluate them, or research works, like Fasoulis (2021), that present the company difficulties in identifying fair operating practices.…”

“…Therefore, there is a set of papers that, lacking ade- Together with the indicators, sustainability evaluation systems are presented, some specific to materiality (Farooq et al, 2020;Opferkuch et al, 2022). Along these lines, works such as that of Matteucci (2020) or practices contribute to all the SDGs (Ylönen & Salmivaara, 2021), nor do they do so in the same way, which makes it difficult to evaluate them, or research works, like Fasoulis (2021), that present the company difficulties in identifying fair operating practices.…”