Weighing and prioritizing the environmental risk management affecting on financial performance of ports and maritime organizations

Background and Theoretical Foundations: 

Ports are the main routes for transporting products around the world and play an important role being the vital links of land and sea. Also, they act as gateways and linking transport corridors, and enhance trade and communication. Marine and coastal environments face countless threats, including pollution sources, oil and gas extraction, tourism, overfishing, invasive species, destruction and loss of habitats, and climate change. Each of these factors imposes the highest cost on Ports and Maritime Organization, which reduces the financial performance of organization and its profitability. Since financial performance is a central issue in all organizational analyses, risk management is necessary to reduce failures caused by various risks that lead to large financial losses. Therefore, identifying the environmental risks of ports and managing them increases safety and, as a result, effective financial performance and increases their profitability. Therefore, The purpose of this research is weighting and prioritizing the environmental risks management of port equipment and facilities, operational, human resources, pollution, maritime transport, natural, security, and rules affecting on financial performance of Ports and Maritime Organization.

This research is a mixed data in terms of type, an applied and developmental in terms of purpose, exploratory research in terms of nature and a survey in terms of data collection method. The time period of this study is cross-sectional and was conducted in the years 2021 and 2022. The statistical population of the research is certified and experienced specialists in the field of financial management and health, safety and environment of Ports and Maritime Organization. In order to determine the weight and prioritization of environmental risks management, the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process technique and with the purposeful sampling method, the opinions of 12 people were used. Excel 2013 software was used to analyze the research data.

The demographic characteristics of experts showed that most experts have a master level of education, work experience between 21 and 30 years and the position of head of maritime safety and protection department. According to the presented results of weighting and prioritization of the main research criteria with fuzzy analytic hierarchy process technique, human resources risk management with a weight of 0.313 got the first rank and it was recognized as the most important criterion. After that, operational environmental risks management with a weight of 0.219, pollution with a weight of 0.138, natural with a weight of 0.118, maritime transport with a weight of 0.090, security with a weight of 0.064, port equipment and facilities with a weight of 0.030 and rules with a weight of 0.028 were in the next priorities, respectively.

As a result, in order to improve the financial performance of Ports and Maritime Organization, special attention should be paid to environmental risks management. When the Ports and Maritime Organization identifies and fully implements the national and international requirements in the field of environment, it can integrate environmentally friendly processes and reduce their pollution by reducing environmental risks and in this way, to improve its environmental performance and financial performance at the same time. Also, by considering the training programs for organization's employees, increase the level of their skills and professional knowledge and thus reduce human error.