7 Shipyards are starting to adapt quickly. We’re bringing multibillion-dollars worth of business into yards and if sustainability is important to our passengers, it is to us and so it will be for shipyards too. We are also seeing a supplier community that’s motivated to start doing things and we see little pockets of action which are going to continue growing, particularly as companies start specifying those sustainable suppliers to reward their efforts. One of the big priorities for the brands is to get interior designers and specifiers together on a regular basis. We need to find and adopt a consistent voice and use it to communicate with our leadership and to the entire community. Innovation starts with an idea but it doesn’t go anywhere if it doesn’t inspire other people to start working on it too. We are at the beginning of a journey and now groups are forming, initiatives are underway and we’re talking. But actually, the best way for all of us to come together is under the umbrella of an organisation that can turn talk into action. A sustainable design group charged with putting together a series of recommendations for the industry to adopt together would be more impactful and more useful than anything we can achieve individually today. I’d want to be in that group, with other brands, designers, shipyards, classification societies and policymakers. Billions of dollars are spent by cruise lines on materials, carpet, furniture, laminates, plastics and all of the other things that are the responsibility of the interior team. I think we could easily make a business case to warrant the formation of a coalition to advance sustainability topics for this side of the business. We need to engage with other departments in the business too so that we can see what entertainment, revenue management, food and beverage, shore excursion and other teams are doing. There will be great ideas within these teams that we can adopt too. For now, let’s keep talking about sustainability, keep doing it and keep encouraging others to do it. And I think the greatest response that you’ll get will be from suppliers when they see sales of their most sustainable products grow and grow. Of the last dozen suppliers that I’ve met in person, nine have shown me a sustainable product – I’m sure that’s because they’ve heard me speak at a conference or seen one of my posts on social media. If every supplier showed every designer their most sustainable products it would transform the sustainability of the ships that we build. The industry is working hard on major sustainability gains like clean fuels and zero emissions. If we take inspiration from these initiatives, there are many little things that we could do in interiors that would add up to a big thing too. It would be a very worthwhile effort. We can get there by working together to deliver a new framework that will enable the significant changes we need going forward.
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