Evolution of green shipping research: themes and methods

ABSTRACT

Over the past 30 years, there have been growing concerns on the environmental impacts of maritime transportation, which have attracted great attention from both academia and practitioners. Understanding developments in this area can help guide future research. We conducted a comprehensive review of green shipping research, comprising 213 papers published in transportation journals in SSCI of 2017 over the period 1988–2017. We find that research on green shipping has increased greatly since 2012, accounting for 77.5% of the reviewed papers. The main focus today on green shipping was on air pollution, and the classification of green shipping practice, such as technical measures, operational options, market-based measures, and recycling and reusing, is becoming clear. According to the existing studies, future research on green shipping must strengthen technology research to not only solve practical problems, but also to establish a theoretical green shipping system. Moreover, researchers from different countries could cooperate with each other to give effective suggestions on setting standards and laws of green shipping. Finally, we identify the future research themes will focus on setting up green shipping system and legislation and policy.

KEYWORDS:

• Green shipping
• pollution
• green shipping practice
• green policy
• air emissions
• literature review

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) developed an international convention (MARPOL 73/78) to prevent pollution from ships in 1973. Until now, IMO has adopted 52 treaties regulating ship design and operation.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Chung-Ang University Research Scholarship grants in 2016 and in part by Korea Foundation.