By
Rebecca Gibson |
Carnival Corporation & plc has set out ten goals for reducing its environmental footprint by 2020, while enhancing the health, safety and security of its guests and crew.
Released in the company’s 2014 Sustainability Report last December, three of the goals focus on developing, deploying and operating exhaust gas cleaning systems for clean air emissions, increasing cold ironing capacity and further reducing the intensity of equivalent carbon dioxide emissions (CO2e).
Last November, Carnival revealed it had reduced CO2e emissions from shipboard operations by 20%, a year ahead of schedule. Now that it has attained its initial goal, the company has set out plans to continue reducing the rate of CO2e emissions by 25% by 2020 from its 2005 baseline.
As part of this effort, the company’s ten global brands have developed strategic energy reduction and conservation initiatives. For example, Carnival Corporation has contracted Meyer Werft to build four of the world’s first LNG-fuelled cruise vessels – two for Costa Cruises and two for AIDA Cruises. The ships will use LNG to generate 100% of their power while in port and at sea, significantly reducing exhaust emissions.
“As the largest cruise company in the world, with healthy oceans and seas core to our operations and with most of our employees living and working at sea, the very essence of our business is built on sustainable and transparent practices,” said Bill Burke, chief maritime officer at Carnival Corporation. “Our goal is to make sure our 11 million annual guests have a great vacation experience, and to maintain a positive and thriving workplace for our employees. We maintain this commitment by keeping our guests and crew members safe, providing extraordinary customer service, protecting the environment in which we work and live, hiring great employees passionate about their work, having positive relationships with our suppliers and other stakeholders, enhancing the port communities our ships visit and the communities where we work, and maintaining our financial strength. These core values are among the cornerstones to our success as a business.”
Carnival Corporation and its ten cruise brands have also implemented several other sustainability initiatives to keep guests and crew safe, provide opportunities for its workforce, strengthen its stakeholder relations and enhance the communities its ships visit. These include designing and developing an industry-first Maritime Security Training Program in the Philippines in 2013 and 2014, which launched in January 2015. The company has also focused on hiring and retaining a team of ‘diverse, highly motivated and engaged employees’, appointing a five brand presidents and several new operations executives and staff.
In 2014, the company also released its Business Partner Code of Conduct and Ethics to help business partners within its supply chain to more fully understand and comply with Carnival Corporation’s expectation for legal compliance and ethical behavior. This includes the areas of labor and human rights, environmental protection, business integrity and health, safety and security.
In June 2014, the Carnival Foundation donated US$2.5 million over a five-year period to The Nature Conservancy to advance the preservation of the world’s oceans and seas.
Last June, the company introduced Fathom, which will offer seven-day cruises with activities and programmes that enable guests to make a real sustainable impact in the Dominican Republic and Cuba. Fathom will welcome its first guests in spring 2016.