Development of a Tool for Environmental Performance Evaluation in Ports: A Case Study based on the Delphi Technique in Port Environment

Abstract

Ports as one the most important parts of the maritime transport system play a paramount role in world trade. The set of designed and implemented processes in ports can significantly impact the surrounding environment. Therefore, the environmental consequences associated with a variety of activities and processes in ports can threaten sustainable global development. Thus, this study was designed and conducted with the aim of developing a tool for environmental performance evaluation in ports. Twenty-five experts in the field of environment and marine sciences participated in the present study. The study was conducted in three rounds based on the Delphi technique in the years 2019-2020. The index of coefficient variation (CV) and acceptance criteria for each of the parameters in this study were considered <20% and 4≤, respectively. The validity of this tool was evaluated using the content validity index (CVI) and content validity ratio (CVR). In addition, its reliability was evaluated using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. CV index in the third round of this Delphi was 0.08. Therefore, the green ports performance evaluation questionnaire was developed with six factors and 32 parameters after three Delphi rounds. These six factors of environmental performance included reactive performance (5 parameters), proactive performance (5 parameters), sustainability (5 parameters), socio-cultural (6 parameters), economic (5 parameters), and governance (6 parameters). The results of the validity evaluation showed that the CVR and CVI of this developed questionnaire were 0.875 and 0.906, respectively. In addition, based on Cronbach's alpha coefficient, the reliability of this tool was estimated to be α=0.92. The findings indicated that the developed tool for evaluating the environmental performance in ports had good validity and reliability. Therefore, this tool can be used as an acceptable estimator of the ports’ environmental performance in the maritime transport system.