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Towards an Integrative Assessment Model for Port Sustainability Decisions: A Systematic Review

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Decision Support Systems XIII. Decision Support Systems in An Uncertain World: The Contribution of Digital Twins (ICDSST 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 474))

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Abstract

The slow pace of sustainability poses questions about what sustainability purposes are served and how to assess the status quo of sustainability for effective decision support. Having recognized the fuzzy concept of sustainability and the lack of sustainability assessments for ports that play key nodes of global logistic networks, this study applies a systematic review method to broadly collect theoretical and practical data from literature databases and relevant organizations, to identify sustainability requirements, port sustainability perceptions, and existing sustainability assessment approaches and methods. Results show that the sustainability concept is moving to eco-centric and context-specific thinking while the port sustainability still lies in traditional triple lines and the elements of the concept lack recognition of the business-environment nexus. Although dozens of specific methods have been available from the existing sustainability assessments, previous assessment approaches rely much on subjective expert judgments or quantitative data, which may affect the reliability and validity of assessments. As such, this study provides a new integrative assessment model for port sustainability decisions to meet ecological needs. The proposed model integrates the interactions between port activities and the environment. It is a data-driven, evidence-based approach to reducing subjectivity and saving time. The proposed assessment model contributes to the understanding the port sustainability situations and finding preferable options in terms of interaction mechanisms.

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Data Availability Statement

Data supporting the results reported can be found in the citations.

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Acknowledgments

This study is supported by the Jimei University Scientific Research Starting Foundation [ZQ2019037] and the China Scholarship Fund [202108350040].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jimei University, Xiamen, 361021, China

    Xiaofang Wu

  2. University of Plymouth, Plymouth, PL4 8AA, UK

    Shaofeng Liu & Huilan Chen

  3. Xiamen Suixiang Space Culture Communication Co., Ltd., Xiamen, 361027, China

    Shaoqing Hong

Authors
  1. Xiaofang Wu
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  2. Shaofeng Liu
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  3. Shaoqing Hong
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  4. Huilan Chen
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Contributions

This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xiaofang Wu .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Plymouth, Plymouth, UK

    Shaofeng Liu

  2. University of Toulouse Capitole - IRIT, Toulouse, France

    Pascale Zaraté

  3. University of Toulouse 1 - IMT Mines Albi, Albi, France

    Daouda Kamissoko

  4. University of Namur, Namur, Belgium

    Isabelle Linden

  5. University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Jason Papathanasiou

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Wu, X., Liu, S., Hong, S., Chen, H. (2023). Towards an Integrative Assessment Model for Port Sustainability Decisions: A Systematic Review. In: Liu, S., Zaraté, P., Kamissoko, D., Linden, I., Papathanasiou, J. (eds) Decision Support Systems XIII. Decision Support Systems in An Uncertain World: The Contribution of Digital Twins . ICDSST 2023. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 474. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32534-2_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32534-2_16

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-32533-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-32534-2

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