Adoption of Sustainability in Seaport Infrastructure: A Systematic Literature Review

2. Literature Review

The topic of sustainability and its applications in various industries has gained importance in the last decade. Sustainability in the seaport sector has also attracted attention among researchers. There are numerous literatures on sustainability issues and the importance of sustainability in the seaport structure. The articles were collated with a search through keywords and reviewed. The initial inference drawn from the articles were that:

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  Sustainability adoption is an important consideration of all countries following the UN guidelines of 17 Sustainability Goals.

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  Building seaport infrastructure is crucial to trade and commerce.

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  Emerging economies, particularly in Asia, are focusing largely on building port infrastructure to promote trade.

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  In building port infrastructure, the need for sustainability inclusion is gaining importance to preserve the fragile ecosystem.

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  There are challenges in adopting sustainable parameters while developing such infrastructure.

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  The role of key stakeholders is crucial in sustainability adoption.

Most literature on the subject highlights either the environmental or the social issues encountered in the seaports. Research on economic issues mostly centres around the analysis of funding for creating seaport infrastructures. There are also numerous research articles on the operational aspect of seaport management and linkages with sustainability dimensions through case study approaches. All these studies contributed to identifying key areas that are pertinent in the adoption of sustainability in seaport infrastructure.