Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to make a business analysis of the Global Shipping industry, using a sample of four shipping companies in Norway, in order to establish whether the profitability is prosperous and sustainable enough for future growth. Also which different factors have been affecting the profitability.

Background: Both the International and the Norwegian Shipping industry has been seen as an fluctuating industry, characterized poor returns, short market cycles where market booms have caused extraordinary returns. Additionally the shipping industry has recently been seen as a non-sustainable industry, where the proportion of its actions has not covered its sustainability, where, for example the vessels internationally have been seen to release a great amount of greenhouse gases.

Method: Annual reports from 1970 – 2009 have been used in order to establish the profitability and sustainability reporting within the Norwegian Shipping in-dustry, additionally interviews have been conducted in order to gather knowledge within Sustainability reporting and being Sustainable, as well as relevant journals have been gathered from diverse databases.

Conclusion: The findings of this thesis present that the shipping industry has not been sustainable, and that its growth has been fluctuating. Thus the conclusion being that the shipping industry is a very fluctuating industry where each company is driven by profit maximizing and thinking of their survival in a short-term perspective, rather than a long-term perspective.