Carnival Corp unveils sustainability journey

The company is also looking at alternative fuels. “We have made a big bet on LNG, but we are looking at other things too and hope to make a shift to a methanol ship - to convert one ship to methanol to learn from that.” 

He says the rest of the fleet is heavily focused on scrubbers. “Our fleet is loaded with these; we have 270 and they cover most of the rest of fleet.”

Moving to batteries, he says, “We have a 10-MW battery on one of our ships we are testing. I believe there will be more over time as they allow peak shaving, shut down an engine faster and allow us to run a thruster in port when before we needed to keep an engine [on].” 

The company has also tested fuel cells and biofuel. “The challenge with biofuel is it is still very expensive, but we tested it to make sure it works, and our tests showed we can run on biofuel alone which surprised me, because when I was in the Navy, we needed a mix of 50/50 blended biofuel to get lubricating properties.” 

In terms of Scope 3, Carnival Corp is working with an outside firm to measure emissions.  
The company is also working across a range of energy-efficient measures, which also help to green the fleet. “We have improved hulls – there is a lot around hydrodynamics, not just building a ship to be hydrodynamically efficient but keeping it hydrodynamically efficient.”

Nine of Carnival Corp’s ships are equipped with air-lubrication systems, which produces a layer of bubbles that decouples the hull from water, allowing the ship to travel more smoothly in water and use less propulsion power. Mr Burke comments, “This is very good at 10-18 knots, that is typically how we travel and in between those speeds we see 5-6-7% improvement in propulsion.”

The company is also focused on a circular economy. Mr Burke explains, “In 2019, we said want to do three things around food waste and plastics. We want to reduce our food waste, eliminate single-use plastics and make sure there is no waste plastic in food waste that we might discharge overboard. We eliminated straws, plastic toothpicks and all that small stuff that can get in food waste.” 

This has wiped out 500M items from the fleet. Food waste at the end of 2023 was down by 38% across the fleet. In the first week of April this year, it had fallen by 42%, allowing Carnival to achieve its 2030 goal last week. Its new 2030 goal is now 50%.  

Mr Burke continues, “The cherry on top is we implemented food waste digesters.” Food waste is dumped in them, and water and air are added. “From an ocean sustainability and biodiversity [perspective], we have reduced the amount of oxygen the ocean needs to complete the decomposition process. We don’t have to do that, but we thought it was a good thing to do. We do not want to discharge plastic or pieces of a plate or knives and forks into an ocean – these digesters only eat organics. They use oxygen and don’t generate methanol.” 

Carnival is sending the waste to compost in certain places, for example, helping some Caribbean islands make their soil better for growing crops. 

The company is also looking at food waste dehydrators. These digest food which is hard and which people don’t eat, like bones or rind. These foods bypass the food digestors, putting less volume and weight on them when offloading. The company has started to use these on one of its brands and this has reduced the volume put in the digester, reducing the amount put in the ocean.

Carnival Corp is also busy when it comes to water. “We have raised the amount of water we make. Our new ships make water and in some places offload water where we visit because these areas need it,” says Mr Burke.  
Mr Burke is stepping down from the role from 1 February 2025 and will move to a new role as external affairs advisor.

Riviera’s Maritime Decarbonisation Conference, Europe 2024 will be held in Amsterdam, 24 September 2024, click here for more information on this industry-leading event