Alternative Approach for Improvement Sustainable Supply Chain Management in the Large European Container Ports

The main objectives of the EU transport policy relate to the limitation of the negative environmental impact of ports. Similarly, companies are adopting sustainable supply chain management practices to respond to policymakers’ and consumers’ demands for sustainable operations. This paper aims to discover how the largest European container ports communicate about their efforts to improve the sustainability of their operations to find out how the ports themselves see their position as a part of the transition towards more sustainable supply chain operations. Based on the study, different large European container ports consider environmental issues differently. The risk is that some ports may get competitive advantages by slipping on environmental questions. Alternatively, if the port does not take sustainability questions seriously and it gets a bad reputation, the risk is that the customers and consumers do not accept the port's behavior and shipping companies start to avoid that port.