MSC Group’s Cruise Division announced its commitment to join the Green Marine Europe Label, becoming the first major global cruise company to join this voluntary environmental certification program for the maritime industry.
Following the success of Green Marine’s North American environmental certification program, the European initiative was launched in 2020 to create a mechanism that supports ship owners in demonstrating their environmental performance. MSC said that joining the initiative will support its Cruise Division’s pledge to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
Two Brands
The division's two brands, MSC Cruises and its newly launched luxury brand, Explora Journeys, are committing to measuring their environmental performance under the program’s guidelines.
The plan calls for tracking progress across eight key performance indicators. These include: aquatic invasive species, pollutant air emissions (SOx and PM), pollutant air emissions (NOx), greenhouse gas emissions, oily discharge, waste management, underwater noise and responsible ship recycling. The two brands will submit their annual environmental performance results to an external accredited verification party, and have committed to then publishing them as well.
Environmental Advances
In recent years, MSC has made considerable advances across all areas of its cruise operations, thanks to the deployment of state-of-the-art environmental technologies, fuels and solutions. These include advanced emissions control systems, ballast water treatment systems and advanced wastewater treatment systems, to name a few. The company said that Explora Journeys’ first two ships currently under construction will feature these and other environmental solutions.
Pierfrancesco Vago, executive chairman of the Cruise Division of MSC Group, said: “Even while we tackled the many challenges of the past two years, we never lost sight of our responsibilities in the long term."
He continued: "In line with our commitment to sustainability and our pledge to reach net zero emissions by 2050, the Green Marine Europe Label will help us demonstrate our progress and share this with our guests, the communities that we serve and all other stakeholders." He said that all will be done "while we continue our work on several projects studying the development of green fuels and technology solutions."
The Green Marine Europe Label is the result of partnerships of the North American environmental certification program Green Marine and the Surfrider Foundation. That partnership was established in 2019, and the program was launched in spring 2020.
Minas Myrtidis, vice president environmental operations and compliance, MSC Cruise Management, said that certification to the Green Marine Europe Label across the company's entire fleet will further demonstrate his group's commitment to environmental sustainability: "It also reflects our desire to continually improve our performance in that space."
For information on MSC Group's sustainability projects, visit www.msccruisesusa.com/sustainability.
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