Cruise Line shares results of 2016 sustainability report and pledges further improvements in future
By
Rebecca Gibson |
Costa Cruises has cut its carbon footprint by 5%, reduced its fuel consumption by 3% per passenger per day, and decreased sulphur oxide and nitrogen oxide emissions by 9% and 4% respectively, since 2015.
The figures were published in Costa Cruises’ newly released 2016 Sustainability report, which also indicated that the company achieved a 9.5% decrease in waste produced per passenger per day in 2016, compared to 2015. Other key statistics from the report showed that the line has 100% of the line’s waste is now sorted onboard, while 62% of the ship’s required water is produced onboard.
Costa’s sustainability initiatives focus on three key areas – Sea, You and Tomorrow – and addresses environmental protection and corporate social responsibility. The company has integrated the sustainable development goals defined by the United Nation's 2030 Agenda into these objectives.
“The roadmap we created three years ago places sustainability at the centre of an integrated and multi-stakeholder approach,” said Stefania Lallai, director of Sustainability and External Relations at Costa Cruises. “This led us to achieve a successful series of projects which implicate the direct involvement of the major players. The next step on the way to an increasingly sustainable future will be to make our guests play a progressively more active part as well, essential in order to achieve results and experiences that go beyond a cruise holiday.”
Costa’s most significant projects in terms of emissions and consumption include the installation of ECO Exhaust Gas Cleaning systems onboard its ships, which have reduced emissions by 90%. In 2019 and 2021, the line will debut LNG-fuelled newbuilds to reduce its environmental footprint even further.
There have also been initiatives to improve ship maintenance, streamline systems for navigation and other onboard services, and introduce digital tools to monitor the environmental performance of each individual vessel. Costa is also working with the Centro Nazionale di Ricerche research centre to focus on significant issues in the oceanography and marine sciences sectors and raise awareness of these issues among the guests and crew.
Costa is also following circular economy principles to reduce the amount of onboard waste it produces, and to promote recycling. It has collaborated with CiAL (an aluminium packaging consortium) to recycle 393 tonnes of aluminium over the past decade, while its ‘Message in a Can’ project has increased aluminium collection in Savona, Italy by 27%.
To help further the sustainable economic and tourism development of the destinations it visits, Costa introduced 150 new excursions in Italy in 2016, and added a new itinerary in the Indian Ocean. The latter created new tourism opportunities in India, the Maldives and Sri Lanka.
In 2016, Costa also inaugurated its Accademia Ospitalità Italiana Crociere (Academy for Italian Cruise Hospitality) in collaboration with the Liguria Region, the Municipality of Arenzano and the The Italian Merchant Marine Academy. Located in Genoa, the facility has already provided more than 800,000 hours of training for employees in the cruise ship hospitality sector, and helped Genoa’s economy.
Costa Cruises has also placed nutrition and the food supply chains at the centre of its sustainable development strategy.