A sustainable vision of port supply chain. A study on the automotive sector

Port logistics has been gaining in modern, connected and globalized economies an ever more intense importance, being characterized, in particular, for the management of services with an ever greater added value. Of course, this wealth creation, in a vision that is largely socio-economic, impacts also the issue of sustainability, which is made even more complex by the interaction along the chain/constellation/network with many other actors and services, constituting almost one flow of activity (according to a Service Dominant Logic perspective). This study aims at examining the issue of sustainability in port logistics, making emerge its multidimensionality and therefore proposing a methodology for its analysis and management. The theoretical framework has been applied to the automotive sector specifically, by virtue firstly of its economic relevance in the global logistics flows, and secondly of its environmental impact in terms of port and back-port. Its methodological application allows to qualify, even though with the inevitable sensitivity/discretion of the individual governance subject, the different criticalities of the sustainability as regards macroactivities and micro-operations of port logistics for the automotive sector. The analysis, so engineered, allows not only to handle a greater social responsibility along the chain/constellation/network of the automotive port logistics, but also, in the perspective of the Business Relational View (BRV), to govern a wider competitiveness in the global competition among port logistic corridors.