Measures for evaluating green shipping practices Implementation

Despite the need for environmental management in shipping, there is no extant measurement scale that comprehensively captures green shipping practices (GSP) in shipping operations. In view of this research void, we investigate the construct of and develop a measurement scale for evaluating GSP implementation in the shipping industry. Based on conceptualisation of GSP in an earlier study and survey data collected from 107 shipping firms, we develop, refine, and test a six-dimensional GSP measurement scale specifically for evaluating GSP implementation in the sea transportation context. The six GSP dimensions include company policy and procedure (CPP), shipping documentation (SD), shipping equipment (SE), shipper cooperation (SC), shipping materials (SM), and shipping design for compliance (SDC). We construct two measurement models at first- and second-order levels for evaluating the implementation of GSP and validate them by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The empirical findings suggest that both of the measurement models for evaluating GSP implementation are reliable and valid. This study makes a novel contribution to the shipping literature by empirically developing and validating the construct of GSP implementation. Practically, we contribute a validated measurement scale useful for shipping companies to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of their greening efforts and identify areas for improvement.