Preface to This Special Issue: The Sustainable Maritime Supply Chain

• Background and Motivation

Moving toward a collaborative and cooperative maritime ecosystem has been a topic of discussion for a while now, to the point that for maritime supply actors, co-innovation should be the new normal. Co-innovation or collaborative innovation leads to enhanced problem-solving, accelerated innovation, increased success probabilities, and reduced risk and cost. Achieving success in maritime-related innovation processes has long been a critical element of sustainability, with most successful cases linked to the success of either the innovation ecosystem [1,2] or the innovation promoter [3].

In order to manage the end-to-end integration of maritime supply chain processes, each stakeholder needs to control their maritime supply chain (i.e., reduced uncertainty) and create value (e.g., cost reduction) for every actor involved in the sustainable ecosystem, with the aim of better serving their customers. Within the process, the intended goals could often be coupled with unintended (positive) outcomes for different supply chain actors (e.g., quality increase in the service, emission reduction), thus creating further opportunities for innovation uptake [4].

Given this context, technological challenges (e.g., different standards, interoperability, cybersecurity, and energy consumption) need to be faced from a logistics corridor point of view in order to guarantee the highest advantages for all the involved actors. The delay in the deployment of announced breakthroughs—such as blockchain, synchromodality, and the physical internet—all point out the need for further cooperation among stakeholders, particularly on the topic of data sharing. A cooperative ecosystem is then one step closer to creating a sustainable maritime ecosystem or network, and ad hoc initiatives should be replaced by more structural strategies. Moving toward a collaborative and cooperative ecosystem is thus the next logical step that should be initiated by maritime actors to enable innovation and build a new competitive edge. From an industrial economic perspective, this trend of (maritime) actors banding together platform-enabled ecosystems can leverage their strengths and competitiveness [5]. Such an approach is currently backed by several research funding programs (e.g., Horizon Europe), including industry–academia research projects that more and more often look at the interoperability of logistics nodes and corridors (e.g., Fenix, MagPie, Disco, and Pioneers projects) rather than upgrades of specific operations [2,6,7,8].

Moreover, the discussed energy transition in the maritime ecosystem can become successful only if life cycle assessments and the logistics involved in energy production (e.g., smart grids) and delivery are taken into account. Thus, the implementation of a cooperative ecosystem is of paramount importance to achieving the needed sustainable goals. The problem is that a lot of companies lack the support for (external) collaborative interactions with other/all actors in the maritime supply chain. Despite this, the creation of a maritime ecosystem might generate an increase in capacity through smoother operations—and improved management of potential bottlenecks—without any further physical infrastructure investment. Against this background, this Special Issue focuses on sustainability and how specific supply chains could be improved through the better use of data.

• Navigating Multidisciplinary Horizons: Toward a Sustainable Maritime Ecosystem

The logistics industry has always been based on a variety of requested competences (e.g., law, optimization, trade, business) and such elements have increased due to the introduction of new technologies that push companies, associations, and regulators to adapt their activities in order to exploit new techs (e.g., IT). Despite this, research is often still developed through field-specific analysis. In assembling this Special Issue (SI), we intended to foster multidisciplinary research. Multidisciplinary research brings together diverse expertise, fostering creativity and innovation. Collaborating across fields allows researchers to approach problems differently, leading to novel solutions, and to be more aligned with industry needs. A holistic understanding enables better-informed decision-making in real-world contexts. Addressing the global challenges regarding creating sustainable maritime supply chains requires a multifaceted approach; thus, multidisciplinary research equips us to tackle these global challenges effectively.

However, practical constraints prevented us from exclusively featuring works that met this criterion. Nevertheless, the collection of papers included in this SI brings together new academic research, offering diverse perspectives on the evolution toward a collaborative and resilient maritime ecosystem. Aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 17 (Partnership), SDG 13 (Climate Change), and SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure), the selected papers delve into various facets of collaboration and cooperation. These viewpoints span from deep-sea and short-sea shipping carriers to port and hinterland.

We hope that this SI will encourage academia to conduct more multidisciplinary research on the topic of the sustainable maritime ecosystem (e.g., maritime economics—legal/management/IT), providing input for a long-term maritime ecosystem vision, and developing tools, methods, and measures that regulators and businesses can use and apply. Sustainable practices in maritime supply chain/ecosystem contribute to economic growth, job creation, and overall development. By adopting sustainable practices, such as using cleaner fuels, optimizing routes, and improving port operations, industry can significantly reduce its environmental impact. Let this Special Issue be a steppingstone towards this end.

• Contribution and Selection Process

In this Special Issue, thirteen meticulously curated papers focus on the topic of ‘sustainable maritime supply chains’, collectively exploring multifaceted strategies to achieve sustainability within the maritime ecosystem. These contributions span a wide spectrum of areas, addressing vital aspects such as port operations, innovation, value creation, infrastructure development, environmental impacts, and freight transport modes (Figure 1). The WCTRS-SIGA2 2021 and WCTRS 2023 conferences, held in Antwerp and Montreal, respectively, contributed to the selection of most of these insightful papers.

Within the sustainable maritime ecosystem topic, the papers included in this Special Issue cover five critical cross-topics (Figure 1).

First, port operations represent key activities for optimizing the maritime supply chain, impacting both ship and logistics performance. Because of this, in the last two decades, several shipping companies have tried to vertically integrate themselves to control this essential element of the logistics chain. Within this framework, study [9] proposes a simulation-based approach for evaluating a terminal extension, thus demonstrating how new data-driven techniques could be used for the better planning and management of port infrastructures. Moreover, since sustainability is also a matter of embedding operations in diverse ecosystems, study [10] demonstrates how innovative processes can be adapted to different port cultural contexts while maintaining sustainability standards.

Secondly, the maritime innovation ecosystem should also create value for the related stakeholders: study [11] presents a seminal paper for establishing guidelines for future strategies and research directions, thus linking this SI to future industry challenges. A key element in this paper is how management and planning activities cannot neglect technology characteristics, and data sharing has become increasingly important for the industry’s future. Moreover, given the risks associated with new technologies’ implementation, study [12] links the needed investment in new fuels to hazard-related activities, paving the way for smoother operations and related value creation, but also incorporating the needed mitigation actions when it comes to safe deployment.

Third, sustainability and collaborative ecosystems can only be achieved by rethinking existing infrastructure and through better investment planning. Thus, study [13] suggests new approaches to evaluate port performance, starting from quay wall evaluation, while study [14] proposes a new multi-objective method when it comes to intermodal capability for incorporating new sustainability and logistics goals in the context of port connectivity evaluation.

Fourth, environmental-related research is at the core of any analysis that aims at incorporating sustainability in complex ecosystems; thus, study [15] presents outcomes from the EU-JRC activities in connection with industry and research directions for assessing future challenges in the EU decarbonization effort. Similarly, studies [12,16] focus on the introduction of new fuels for ships for discussing key cost issues and life cycle assessment challenges for achieving a carbon-zero industry that considers all the different processes of the maritime supply chain. Moreover, study [17] links the new data-driven techniques to port planning and intermodal transport, thus showing how environmental performance cannot be avoided using interdisciplinary tools.

The last block of papers [18,19,20,21] focuses on the intermodality-related challenges, all focusing—by using different approaches—on the problem of forecasting either the demand or supply for making intermodal services more competitive. A key common element is the optimal use of data—with the associated challenges of acquiring them—to exploit the advantages of existing technologies to utilize existing services.

All the papers presented in this SI highlight the need for research aiming at a more holistic view, considering both methods and processes, thus allowing for a swift implementation of innovations. A key aspect defined by most papers is the strategic role of data and the effect of data-sharing processes as critical enablers for the deployment of innovations.