Digital Traceability Through Distributed Ledger Technology: Mitigating Trust Bias in Low‐Carbon Maritime Supply Chains

ABSTRACT

As maritime decarbonization pressures intensify, ports and shipping companies increasingly adopt distributed ledger technology (DLT) to improve transparency. This raises an important question of how they should coordinate their DLT expenditures and green efforts to achieve stronger economic and environmental performance. This study investigates how shippers' environmental awareness (SEA) and trust bias affect the long‐term DLT adoption and emission‐reduction decisions of maritime supply chain (MSC) members. Using a theoretical differential game framework, we compare the equilibrium strategies of a port and a shipping company under four scenarios: no DLT adoption, DLT adoption by the shipping company, DLT adoption by the port, and joint DLT adoption by both parties. Numerical analyses are further conducted to illustrate the theoretical results. Our findings indicate that SEA can promote the port's goodwill and carbon reduction efforts. Notably, greater trust bias among shippers regarding claimed emission reductions discourages MSC members from exerting emission‐reduction efforts. In addition, under certain conditions, the positive effect of DLT implementation by the shipping company on port goodwill is more evident than when implemented by the port itself. Moreover, the introduction of DLT optimizes members' profits and promotes greater carbon reduction. When implementing DLT across the supply chain, the port exerts greater DLT implementation effort, while the shipping company's DLT implementation effort remains unchanged. As a theoretical modeling study rather than an empirical investigation, this research provides analytical insights into the long‐term strategic viability and ecological sustainability of MSC operations.