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TopDigital Green Shipping Innovation: Conception, Adoption And Challenges
“New technologies for greener shipping,” the theme of World Maritime Day in 2022, echoes the importance of using new technologies to facilitate the green transition of the shipping industry to align with regulatory and market requirements. At the MEPC78 meeting in June 2022, IMO has been recommended by countries, including the European Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom, to raise the green goal for shipping to align with the Paris Agreement, which targets the elimination of greenhouse gas emissions arising from shipping by 2050, instead of a 50% reduction in emissions from the 2008 baseline. The European Union reached a preliminary agreement on including shipping operations in the carbon emissions trading system in November 2022. Moreover, there is a shared view within the shipping industry that intelligent, environment-friendly, zero-emission shipping operations are the best and default choice (Grzelakowski et al., 2022). In pace with Industry 4.0, we have seen industrial changes driven by digital technologies where shipping operators are no exception to leverage emerging digital technology applications to pursue innovation for upgrading green shipping practices (Zidi et al., 2022). Emerging digital technology applications transform business operations with enhanced efficiency and productivity, as well as reduced cost and waste, to align with the objective of doing more and better with less (Ivanov et al., 2018). Applications of digital technologies (i.e., blockchain, big data, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence) revolutionize digitized shipping from concept to practice (i.e., smart ships, smart ports, and digital waterways), and these innovations are beneficial for the shipping industry (Al Mashalah et al., 2022).
Currently, there is no clear and specialized concept regarding the innovative application of digital technology in the shipping industry. Following the concept of green shipping practices and green production practices, the shipping industry applied digital technologies to improve shipping operations; these technologies can be considered digital green shipping innovation (DGSI). Broadly, DGSI promotes greener shipping by deploying digital technologies. Recently, DGSI has gained an explosion of academic and managerial interest. For instance, the contribution of embracing digitization to improve the performance of shipping firms has been richly investigated (Ichimura et al., 2022). Another study has examined the role of digitizing shipping documents in greenhouse gas reduction (Plomaritou & Jeropoulos, 2022). The potential of digitizing maritime sectors, the influence of digital technologies development on shipping operations, and related shipping risk management have also been investigated (Nguyen et al., 2022). A systematic study to conceptualize, identify, and explain DGSI and its adoption is highly desirable to advance the knowledge frontier in research and practice in this field.
Adopting DGSI is an essential part of revolutionizing green shipping activities, which is an essential step in promoting greener performance in global logistics. Indeed, integrating innovation into green shipping is conducive to shipping firms optimizing shipping operations for an enhanced capability to satisfy market expectations for greener and smarter shipping services (Yuen et al., 2019; Xue & Lai, 2023). Currently, growing regulatory requirements (e.g., the Energy Efficiency Existing Ship Index (EEXI) and the Carbon Intensity Index (CII) for decarbonization in shipping approved by the Marine Environment Protection Committee [MEPC]) are calling for environmental preservation around the world (Wu et al., 2022) and urging the development of DGSI for compliance and performance improvement. With the widespread adoption of digital technology as a new norm for managing shipping operations, understanding what DGSI is, how it works, and why it matters for the performance of shipping firms benefits industry development.