The cruise industry transported over 26 million customers last year, and while that was good for its bottom line (raking in upwards of $117 billion in 2017), it was not good news for the planet. In 2016, Pacific Standard reported that “each passenger’s carbon footprint while cruising is roughly three times what it would be on land.” In addition to contributing to global carbon emissions, cruising can also contribute to serious health issues and air pollution. In France, 10% of air pollution in the port city of Marseilles can be directly contributed to the shipping industry.
Take Carnival Corporation, the world’s largest cruise line company: across its fleet, pollution is so bad that the large boats pollute 10 times more than all 260 million of Europe’s cars. They also emit sulfur dioxide, contributing to both acid rain and lung cancer. All that adds up to 0.40 kilograms of carbon being emitted per passenger per kilometer on your typical cruise ship, according to a 2008 study.
But thanks to a growing realization that something must change, some cruise lines are trying to be more sustainable, implementing a range of new technologies aimed at reducing the waste produced by their ships and passengers. Those include innovative ideas like onboard solar-power technology, incineration plants, emission-purifying if controversial scrubbers, recycling programs, and advanced wastewater purification systems, as well as cheaper, less polluting fuel options.
Case in point: Celebrity Cruise’s Flora, a brand-new, purpose-built ship that is currently cruising the Galapagos, designed with what Richard D. Fain, chairman and CEO of Celebrity parent company Royal Caribbean, describes as having “sustainability at its core.”
In the name of good business, Celebrity decided to give customers what they wanted. After working with refurbished ships in the region, Lutoff-Perlo made the case for a special ship that would serve the region, the environment, and their customers better, a ship that, in her words, would truly “celebrate the Galapagos” and ideally “transform cruising in the Galapagos.”
With that in mind, Flora was designed to be the most environmentally friendly ship in the Galapagos, incorporating all kinds of technological innovations and green policies to earn the title, albeit some that were already in use across Celebrity’s fleet. For instance, there are no single-use plastics onboard. Each room comes with a built-in water filtration systems and reusable bottles, eliminating the need for disposable ones. Reverse osmosis filtration equipment lets the boat convert seawater into freshwater to fulfill all its needs. It can also reuse air-conditioning condensation to provide water to the ship’s laundry facilities.
