A Holistic Sustainability Framework for Oil Terminals: The Case of China

This research provides a sustainability framework for the Chinese oil terminal sustainability performance evaluation. Due to the lack of existing holistic oil terminal sustainability research and the increasing demand for sustainability pursuits, the developed sustainability framework is expected to act as holistic guidance for port managers to systematically improve oil terminal sustainability performance by showing which indicators and groups should be considered. First, multiple existing sustainability performance indicators from literature are identified to form the theoretical framework. Then, omitted practical or included unpractical indicators are added to/eliminated to finalise a holistic practical developed framework via semi-structured interviews with 34 experts. After a thematic analysis of the interview results, 14 categories and 65 indicators are identified. Convincingly, this research validates and replenishes the existing indicators to enhance reliability and feasibility of the empirical framework. This research contributes to the existing literature a holistic and practical sustainability guidance for Chinese oil terminals.