The Sustainability of Carnival and Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines
Introduction
Carnival Corporation and PLC are regarded as among the most prominent cruising line organizations in the globe. This corporation began with Ted Arison’s (The company’s CEO) purchase of the first cruise ship named Mardi Gras. When starting the business, there were a lot of concerns related to fuel and the number of vessels. But their unique packages, including entertainment and onboard activities, the corporation’s revenues grew, and they began the process of acquisition of their competitors with the purchase of Princess Cruises sealing the deal putting them on the world map of cruise lines. On the other hand, Royal Caribbean International Cruises Ltd was launched in the year 1969. What separated them from their competitors was the superior architectural designs of their cruise ships together with their “out of this world” onboard activities, including climbing rocks, ice skating, and sea surfing. This was able to capture the attention of vacationers who had an eye for adventure, making Roya Caribbean a global cruising line. However, both cruising lines have had trouble in the past due to issues to do with environmental pollution that they cause. An excellent example of this is an article by (Vidal, 2016), which was subject to a legal complaint made against the royal Caribbean cruising line. The people of Southampton, where main cruise ships for the company dock, complained that air pollution was increasing due to those ships. Furthermore, they claimed that air pollution brought about chest problems and asthma. This, therefore, pushed for the cruising lines to develop sustainable development goals to deal with the environmental pollution and issues of society. On this basis, Carnival and Royal Caribbean cruise lines contribute a considerable part to sustainability through primarily focusing on recycling and new energy-efficient technologies.
According to Carnival’s sustainability report, most of their sustainable development goals are on track. One of the goals was the Carbon footprint. Carnival intended to reduce the severity of carbon dioxide emissions (that come about as a result of the corporation’s operations) by twenty-five percent come the year 2020. According to the 2018 report, the goal was able to achieve a more than twenty-seven percent decrease in carbon dioxide emission as compared to the baseline of the year 2005. The company was also able to deliver the World’s first water vessel powered by Liquified natural gas. This would facilitate a lot towards carbon emission reduction in the Environment. Their next goal was advanced air quality systems. These air quality systems would serve towards improving the quality of air emissions through the reduction of compounds containing Sulphur and particulate matter that comes out of the cruise ship’s engine exhaust. The sustainability report indicated that almost seventy-five percent of the company’s cruise ships were powered with advanced air quality systems to boost this goal. The next goal was AWWPS Technology. This technology, commonly known as Advanced Waste Water Purification System, was to be increased throughout the company’s vessels to be able to recycle water through the process of purification. The target by the year 2020 was ten percentage points. According to the 2018 report, 8.6 percentage points were already covered. The next goal was the cold ironing capacity. This involved provision of electric power to ships while berthed so that the engines of the ships are turned off, reducing pollution while onshore. The goal was to increase this cold ironing coverage to all the company’s fleet. The report, therefore, claimed that up to forty-six percent of the Carnival’s cruise ships were equipped. The next goal was waste reduction. The company targeted to reduce the waste that its fleet of cruise ships produced en-route by a margin of approximately five percent come the year 2020. The 2018 sustainability report thus claimed that 4.8% of waste reduction had been achieved. Finally, the goal of water efficiency was also addressed. This goal was aimed at reducing water wastage in the cruise line’s operations. By a margin of five percent come the year 2020. The 2018 report, therefore, stated that 3.8% of water efficiency had been achieved (“Carnival Sustainability,” 2018).
The process of Sustainability in Royal Caribbean International revolved around five key aspects, according to the 2019 sustainability report. The first aspect was energy efficiency. As the organization’s primary goal here was to improve energy efficiency to bring about sustainable development, several key features were designed to much this goal. The first feature was the development of the built-in air lubrication system. This new technology that was launched in the year 2014 created air bubbles at the vessel’s hull to diminish drag as the ship traveled. The next feature was the hull configuration. Contemporary hull designs were implemented on the Royal Caribbean cruise ships to improve performance and also to limit the chance of marine creatures attaching themselves to the vessels during movement. Led lights were the third feature, which was used to replace the regular light bulbs and with effect saving energy through the production of the same light amounts as the standard bulbs but using minimal wattage as compared to them. High-efficiency appliances were also a key feature. These appliances, such as icemakers, were installed across all of the company’s vessels to bring about performance that that reduces the impact on climate change. Another critical feature was window tinting of all the company’s vessels to mitigate solar heat levels and air conditioning amounts needed to be able to cool. Finally, efficient air-conditioning was also installed on cruise ships, thus reducing air conditioning energy waste. The second aspect was emissions. The goal of this aspect was to reduce emissions to attain sustainable development. According to the 2019 report, this was partially achieved through the reduction of overall usage of energy, the investment n technologies that diminish emission such as the “Selective Catalytic Reactors,” and finally the utilization of renewable sources of energy. Royal Caribbean was thus able to reduce greenhouse gas emission through “multi-stream exhaust gas cleaning,” which was explicitly designed to treat exhaust gases coming from the cruise ship’s engines. The third aspect was water and wastewater. Here the goal was to save and recycle water as much as possible. According to the sustainability report, therefore, Royall Caribbean adopted the process of onboard production of water where seawater was turned to fresh consumable water through the process of “reverse osmosis.” Water reduction technology and appliances, for instance, the showerheads and sink aerators, have played a considerable role in the reduction of the usage of equipment, which tends to consume excess electricity or fuel. On the issue of wastewater, the company used the advanced wastewater Purification system to clean the wastewater in the cruise ship’s activities and therefore turning it into clean water for consumption. The fourth aspect was on waste management. Here the company’s goal was to ensure that waste was managed efficiently to avoid land and water pollution. According to the report, essential measures including sustainable and effective chemical products to be used in the cruise ships along with classifying waste according to their nature of recyclability, thus keeping the garbage away from Landfills, were put into place. This encouraged recycling, which is a massive player in the reduction of pollution. The final aspect was the application of technology in the building of cruise ships. The goal of this aspect was to ensure the vessel complied with energy efficiency guidelines. According to the report, the company’s new ships discharge twenty percent less carbon dioxide as compared to the old ships (“Royal Caribbean Group | Environment,” 2019).
Basing on the sustainability reports of the two companies Carnival and the Royal Caribbean, it is evident that various goals are similar within them. These goals include carbon efficiency, wastewater treatment, and reduction of air pollution. According to (“Cruise ship Emissions,” 2017), cruise lines, including the two most significant lines, Carnival and Royal Caribbean, strive to offer advancements in carbon efficiency. According to the data provided by the reports, Carnival produced emission totals of around 10,000-kilotons of carbon dioxide, while Royal Caribbean produced an estimated 4000-kilo tones of the same. This was slightly reduced figures in the emissions as compared to the other years, thus proving that they were striving to achieve carbon efficiency. According to the article by (Bennett, 2017), waste and waster water disposal by the largest companies in the cruising business, i.e., including Carnival and Royal Caribbean, used wastewater Electrochemical Treatment Technology to treat wastewater and other organic waste into energy that is useful therefore promoting energy efficiency. The issue of diminishing air pollution is also witnessed where both companies strive through the use of technologies to remove Sulphur and carbon from their ships’ emissions to prevent massive air pollution.
The differences between the two companies’ sustainability reports mainly lied on the aspect of the efficient energy technologies that were being used. In the Carnival cruising line, two main technologies were used. This included air quality systems that would serve towards improving the quality of air emissions and the Advanced Waste Water Purification System to recycle water through the process of purification. On the other hand, Royal Caribbean had more advanced energy-efficient technologies. This included technologies to create air bubbles at the vessel’s hull to diminish drag as the vessel traveled, led lights, for saving energy, window tinting to reduce solar heat levels, appliances such as icemakers to bring about performance that minimizes the impact on climate change, technologies that diminish emission such as the “Selective Catalytic Reactors and finally, Water reduction technology and appliances, for instance, the showerheads and sink aerators.
In conclusion, Cruising is one of the primary impactors of the Environment. However, over the last few years, the two significant Cruising lines Carnival and Royal Caribbean have played a massive role in sustainable development through primarily focusing on recycling and new efficient technologies. It is said that the cruising line can recycle up to sixty percent more waste than operators based on land and are now utilizing cleaner fuels all based on boosting the Environment.
References
Carnival Sustainability. (2018). Retrieved 25 June 2020, from https://carnivalsustainability.com/goals-performance/sustainability-goals-2020/.
Bennett, M. (2017). Cruising’s Environmental Impact. The Maritime Executive. Retrieved 25 June 2020, from https://www.maritime-executive.com/magazine/cruisings-environmental-impact.
Cruise ship Emissions. Global Sustainable Tourism Dashboard. (2017). Retrieved 25 June 2020, from https://www.tourismdashboard.org/explore-the-data/cruise-ship/.
Royal Caribbean Group | Environment. Rclcorporate.com. (2019). Retrieved 25 June 2020, from https://www.rclcorporate.com/environment/.
Vidal, J. (2016). The World’s largest cruise ship and its supersized pollution problem. The Guardian. Retrieved 25 June 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/21/the-worlds-largest-cruise-ship-and-its-supersized-pollution-problem.