The impact of sectoral guidelines on sustainability reporting in ports: the case of the Spanish ports

This paper aims to analyze the impact of standardized sectoral guidelines on the quality of port authorities’ (PAs) sustainability reporting. Sustainability reporting is a way of meeting stakeholder information demands about the economic, social, and environmental impact of port cluster activities. We claim that such guidelines do not always guarantee the quality of reporting, whenever organizations merely comply with their contents. Our study uses content analysis of the sustainability reports of 25 PAs in Spain, and it constructs two indices to measure the quality of the information disclosed: a quantitative index (the adherence index) and a qualitative index (the quality index). The existence of national port sector guidelines, coupled with regulations requiring sustainability reporting, places the Spanish case in a unique setting to study the implementation of port-specific guidelines for sustainability reporting. Our findings suggest that the provision of social and environmental information should be strengthened, especially considering the environmental impacts of port activities. Cluster analysis is also used to classify the sampled PAs based on our quality index and its influencing factors. Our results highlight the need to incorporate stakeholder engagement and dialogue in sustainability reporting processes, as this results in improved reporting quality. It is hoped that our findings help policymakers, legislators, and standardization bodies in developing their proposals on the content of reports, as well as improving the quality of PA reporting.