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A shifting tide: environmental challenges and cruise industry responses
Cruise industry responding to environmental challenges but more remains to be done
Authors:
J. Sweeting; S. Wayne
Publisher:
Center for Environmental Leadership in Business, Washington, 2003
This document is offered as a starting point for effective collaboration between the cruise industry and others interested in helping the industry further reduce its environmental footprint and contribute to the conservation of the ecologically important areas that cruise ships visit. It reports that the cruise industry ’s environmental programs and specific actions are more extensive than might be expected given the headlines of the past few years. However, a number of challenges remain to protect tourism destinations that feature the natural world as their main attraction.
About 70 percent of cruise destinations are in biodiversity hotspots, including the Caribbean,the Mediterranean, Western Mexico, the Panama Canal Zone and the South Pacifc. The industry response to the environmental impact has been to adopt a set of practices and procedures through the International Council of Cruise Lines (ICCL). The three major cruise companies and some smaller companies, have corporate programs for implementing the ICCL practices and procedures, and, in some cases, exceeding these standards. All three major lines have programs that include environmental awareness training for their crews, screening of vendors who handle shore-side off-loading of wastes and testing of technologies to minimize or eliminate waste. Each of these programs is continually evolving to integrate the latest technologies and management practices.
In order to maintain credibility regarding the cruise industry ’s environmental performance and to ensure implementation of ICCL practices and procedures, a systematic approach to reporting on the implementation would help demonstrate the good practices many of the cruise lines are implementing.
The report goes on to outline seven individual environmental issues related to the cruise industry's activities and operations. These issues are: air emissions; ballast; water and non-native species; wastewater; hazardous waste; solid waste; oily bilge water and the potential impact of the cruising industry on coral reefs. Under each issue, both the potential impacts and implications for the industry, as well as current industry responses are discussed.
The authors argue that cruise lines should continue to pilot and implement leading practices for addressing their environmental impact, seek partnerships with non-governmental and scienti c organizations to better understand their impact and seek ways to make the industry a sustainable model for the future of tourism and shipping. A key conclusion of this study is that there is a pressing need for further research into the impacts of cruise ship activity on the environment. Although much is known in general about the effects of air pollution, oily water and untreated waste, there is little data on the speci c impacts of cruise ships.
