(TAN): MSC Group’s Cruise Division recently announced its commitment to join the Green Marine Europe Label, becoming the first major global cruise company to do so. This is a voluntary environmental certification programme for the maritime industry, the cruise company said.
Following the success of Green Marine’s North American environmental certification programme, the European initiative was launched in 2020 to create a mechanism that supports shipowners in demonstrating their environmental performance on a European scale. This will support the MSC Group’s Cruise Division’s pledge to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
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To ensure success, the division’s two brand, MSC Cruises and its newly launched luxury offering Explora Journeys, are committing to measuring their environmental performance as per the programme’s guidelines annually, tracking progress across eight key performance indicators: 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.
In recent years, MSC has made considerable advances across all areas of its cruise operations thanks to the deployment of some 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 first two vessels of Explora Journeys, which are currently under construction, will feature these and other environmental solutions. The two brands have equally committed to submitting their annual environmental performance results to an external accredited verification party, and to publishing them.
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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. 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. All of this, while we continue our work on several projects studying the development of green fuels and technology solutions and we look forward to bringing them to life soonest.”
Minas Myrtidis, MSC Cruise Management’s Vice President Environmental Operations and Compliance said: “Certification to the Green Marine Europe Label across our entire fleet will further demonstrate our commitment to environmental sustainability as it also reflects our desire to continually improve our performance in that space.’’
