Cruise Operator: Sustainability Will Earn Itself Back

Cruise passengers are likely to spread news of environmental pollution widely on social media, creating bad marketing for operators.

According to Rotterdam-based cruise operator Holland America Group (HAG), striving to reduce emissions and waste is the natural choice for cruise ships as “sustainability will earn itself back,” World Maritime News reports.

“I heard from other cruise companies that if environmental pollution is discovered during a cruise, the passengers will often make it known via social media,” said Sibrand Hassing, director of fleet operations in Europe, adding that creating waste in destinations that passengers are taken to effectively ruins one’s own market.

“This means bad marketing and some people see their concerns confirmed: cruises are polluting, although we are not.”

Hassing said that HAG, which is part of the Carnival Corporation and operates Holland America Line (HAL), Seabourn, Princess Cruises, and P&O Australia, currently has environmental goals to reduce fuel, energy, water, and waste by two percent every year.

The company also purportedly has a “zero dumping” policy, and reports everything that falls overboard.

“It is a slow, but continuous reduction and I am proud to say that we are on target for 2015 and up until now, we have reached our goal every year,” Hassing said.

HAG says it is currently in the process of equipping its ships with scrubbers, with the end goal to have all 104 Carnival Group cruise ships equipped with scrubbers by 2020.

“For some vessels, the installation was not too difficult, but for others, we had to break down the scrubbers and take out cabins from the vessels to be able to install them,” Hassing said.

“Almost every scrubber has to be an individual design.”

Last year Carnival first announced its plans to install scrubbers aboard more than 70 vessels.