Purpose

Businesses produce corporate sustainability information in support of the decision-making of their stakeholders through sustainability reporting. However, the use of such information has been limited because of the broadness of sustainability indicators used in sustainability reports. This study aims to identify sector-specific sustainability indicators and priorities based on the material issues of the logistics sector.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted an exploratory study using 64 sustainability reports from the logistics sector. Qualitative content analysis was performed using Leximancer software to identify key themes and material concepts of sustainability reports.

Findings

The results showed that the most important indicators of the logistics sector are economic performance and energy, yet sustainability reports appear to focus more on reporting social sustainability information. Of the several sustainability measures, environmental and social factors dominated the reporting (8 economic, 62 environmental and 58 social). This discrepancy can also imply inconsistencies in sustainability reporting.

Practical implications

Identifying sector-specific indicators enables assessing the impact of sustainability issues on value creation and performance comparison among similar organizations. This is also beneficial in ensuring consistency of sustainability reporting, which is a prerequisite for policymaking in sustainable logistics.

Originality/value

Prior studies emphasized that no sector-specific sustainability indicators were established in the literature and standardized indicators are needed to ensure the comparability of results. This study addresses this gap by identifying sector-specific sustainability indicators based on the material issues of the logistics sector.

中文翻译：

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探索特定行业的可持续发展指标：物流行业可持续发展报告的内容分析

目的

企业通过可持续发展报告生成企业可持续发展信息，以支持其利益相关者的决策。然而，由于可持续性报告中使用的可持续性指标的广泛性，此类信息的使用受到了限制。本研究旨在根据物流部门的重大问题确定特定部门的可持续性指标和优先事项。

设计/方法/方法

作者使用来自物流部门的 64 份可持续发展报告进行了探索性研究。使用 Leximancer 软件进行了定性内容分析，以确定可持续发展报告的关键主题和材料概念。

发现

结果表明，物流部门最重要的指标是经济绩效和能源，但可持续性报告似乎更侧重于报告社会可持续性信息。在多项可持续性措施中，环境和社会因素在报告中占主导地位（8 个经济因素、62 个环境因素和 58 个社会因素）。这种差异也可能意味着可持续发展报告中的不一致。

实际影响

确定特定部门的指标可以评估可持续性问题对类似组织之间的价值创造和绩效比较的影响。这也有利于确保可持续发展报告的一致性，这是可持续物流政策制定的先决条件。

原创性/价值

先前的研究强调，文献中没有建立特定部门的可持续性指标，需要标准化指标来确保结果的可比性。本研究通过根据物流部门的重大问题确定特定部门的可持续性指标来解决这一差距。