This study aims to review the literature on sustainability and corporate governance in the shipping industry, outline suggestions for future research and put forward directions for policy makers.
Using a semi-systematic literature review, 94 papers are analyzed. The analysis focuses on sustainability performance and reporting in the shipping industry, the relationship between shipping companies and their external and internal stakeholders and corporate governance and the market for corporate control.
The paper documents that a) research on sustainability focuses more on environmental rather than social sustainability in the shipping industry, b) research on sustainability rarely includes corporate governance considerations and vice versa, c) board structure and ownership structure affect the financial performance of shipping companies, d) causality between ESG policies and realized impact is elusive, e) ESG reporting differs substantially across shipping companies and f) the design and implementation of ESG policies must rely on a diverse blend of stakeholder interests. Furthermore, the paper introduces a new model that can serve as navigator in the analysis of ESG in the shipping industry.
This paper is the first to jointly review corporate governance and sustainability performance and reporting in the shipping industry, thereby highlighting ESG challenges in the context of an industry like shipping which is uniquely global and bears distinct importance for the attainment of sustainability policy objectives.
