MSC Cruises announced that it has become the first major line to be awarded the Green Marine Europe Certification, a voluntary environmental certification programme for the maritime industry.
According to the cruise line, Green Marine Europe is a partnership between North American environmental certification programme Green Marine and the Surfrider Foundation, a leading European Union NGO in ocean and maritime protection.
MSC Cruises said it achieved the highest possible score across eight performance indicators that the organisers said represented ‘environmental excellence and leadership’.
“The performance indicators measured were aquatic invasive species, pollutant air emissions – both sulphur dioxide and particulate matter – nitrogen dioxide pollutant air emissions, greenhouse gas emissions, oil discharge, waste management, underwater radiated noise and responsible ship recycling,” said MSC Cruises.
Captain Minas Myrtidis, MSC Cruises’ VP Environmental Operations and Compliance collected the award on behalf of the line at a ceremony held in Bilbao, Spain.
Captain Myrtidis said they are immensely proud to be awarded the highest possible rating across all of the criteria.
“The Green Marine Europe certificate is testament to the hard work and commitment of everyone throughout our business, both onboard and ashore, who have dedicated their collective efforts to help MSC Cruises towards achieving its sustainability goals.
“Our certification underscores our strong performance credentials as well as our commitment to performance improvement, transparency and accountability,” said the captain.
MSC Cruises further revealed that together with its sister company and luxury brand Explora Journeys, they have committed to measure their environmental performance annually and submit their results to Green Marine Europe for its external accredited verification.
“Both lines have set targets to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The emissions intensity of MSC Cruises’ ship operations has decreased by 33.5 percent since 2008 and the company is confident in achieving a 40 percent reduction by 2030,” said the cruise line.
The line’s flagship MSC Euribia in June 2023 achieved the world’s first net zero greenhouse gas emissions cruise ship voyage from France to Denmark on a mass balance basis.