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San Francisco, CA — Despite efforts to improve operations, cruise ships that ply North American waters must go a lot further to become environmentally responsible, says Friends of the Earth, whose latest report card on the industry gives 11 major cruise lines green grades ranging from B- to F.
Holland America Line, which received a B-, had the highest cumulative grade in the review of 11 cruise lines and 113 of their ships. Norwegian Cruise Lines came in second in the rankings, also earning a B-. Luxury travel line Crystal Cruises received the worst final grade, an F, which the firm disputed as unmerited.
While acknowledging that some lines are stepping up their environmental efforts, all of them should be doing more, said Marcie Keever, the director of Friends of the Earth's Clean Vessel Campaign.
"If they're going to be coming into our waters, they need to be behaving better -- they need to be the best they can be," Keever said in a phone interview with GreenBiz.com about her organization's second annual "Cruise Ship Environmental Report Card," which has set off an ocean storm of controversy about the validity of its assessments.
The cruise lines responded through the industry group Cruise Lines International Association, which called the report card and process used to produce it "flawed." Crystal Cruises spokeswoman Mimi Weisband echoed the assessment, saying the report card doesn't present a full picture of cruise line environmental practices. If it had, Crystal Cruises -- whose environmental management system has been ISO certified since 2004 -- "deserved an A ... if not an A+," she said.
“It is unfortunate that instead of contributing to a meaningful scientific dialogue about protecting our oceans, FOE continues to use innuendo and misstate the facts to advance its agenda," the cruise line association said in a statement emailed to GreenBiz. "This 'report card' is not based on science, law, or the facts, and like its last one, is rooted in FOE’s own arbitrary and flawed criteria.
“CLIA member cruise lines meet and often exceed all applicable international and federal environmental standards enforced by U.S. authorities and others around the world."
The force of the association's salvo matched that of FOE's strongly worded news release on the report card in which Keever is quoted as saying:
“From ending the use of dirty fuel that pollutes the air to stopping the disgusting practice of dumping sewage and other waste into the sea, it’s time for the cruise industry to clean up its act. The unfortunate reality is that, at present, many cruises harm marine ecosystems and the health of people who live near ports of call.”
A snapshot of the report card appears below. An interactive version that provides information on each of the lines, the ships included in the review and the basis for their grades is available at www.foe.org/cruisereportcard.
The report card singled out Disney Cruise Line as the "most improved" among the lines that were graded and recognized Royal Caribbean International for making improvements. In 2004, Royal Caribbean was hailed by the nonprofit advocacy group Oceana for installing advanced waste treatment systems on three ships and saying that the equipment would be added to the rest of the fleet and any new ships, although no timeline was set for the process.
Next Page: How the Grading System Worked and What Crystal Cruises Said About It
Setting the Record
Setting the Record Straight:
We feel compelled to set the record straight. Some of you may have read a recent environmental “report card” on the cruise industry from an organization called Friends of the Earth (FOE) based in San Francisco.
We are very disturbed at FOE’s questionable criteria and selective research to rate cruise ships, which we believe are random, arbitrary and incomplete.
FOE used three criteria to determine their score: whether a ship has Advance Wastewater Purification systems (AWPs), whether a ship has shore power plug-in capabilities, and a ship’s water quality compliance in Alaska.
Today, the discharge quality of AWPs is not consistently accepted by many ports and state governments and many do not permit discharge from AWPs within their waters, including certain ports in the state of Alaska. AWPs are not certified by either U.S. or international government bodies. If such governmental bodies provide guidance, Crystal will certainly comply with this guidance. Instead, Crystal has focused its resources on other effective practices and waste management systems, including Marine Sanitation Devices (MSDs) that are certified by the International Maritimes Organization (IMO). In fact, MSDs are the only systems certified to international standards. These devices treat waste such that it meets IMO requirements for discharge beyond three nautical miles from shore. However, Crystal’s voluntary discharge policy exceeds this distance requirement by four times.
Additionally, there are only three of more than 165 different ports around the world in which Crystal ships call that have shore power plug-in facilities for connecting passenger ships. However, we burn low sulfur fuel, both as required and voluntarily, and have effective opacity meters to monitor and reduce emissions impact in port.
In all, Crystal Cruises has implemented many initiatives that focus on waste streams, emissions, water filtration and waste reduction. In keeping with our high standards in everything we do, Crystal Cruises’ discharge policies exceed international regulations. With our Environmental Management System, Crystal has achieved certification to the ISO 14001 standard (strict requirements for a company’s environmental plan and practices), which is only awarded to those companies that meet a comprehensive and stringent set of criteria. In fact, the certification was renewed this past year following an extensive audit. In 2009, the Ports of Stockholm presented Crystal Symphony with the Environmental Buoy Diploma for the third time, in recognition of our waste management efforts in the region, and Crystal Cruises was awarded the “Venice Blue Flag” by the port of Venice for the last three consecutive years in recognition of our voluntary commitment and efforts to reduce emissions and safeguard the city’s environment. We are proud to be internationally recognized for our “Crystal Clean” initiatives.
As a testament to our continued environmental efforts, when Crystal Cruises last home-ported in San Francisco in 2005 in connection with our series of cruises to Alaska, the Port of San Francisco’s Environmental Advisory Committee presented Crystal with an environmental award for exceeding existing environmental regulations and industry standards to reduce the impact on air and water quality while operating in San Francisco Bay. Their decision was based on our ship’s clean fuel strategies while in port, engine emission reduction, progressive wastewater management practices and dedicated recycling and solid waste disposal programs. Further, Crystal most recently underwent and passed a rigorous, comprehensive evaluation by the U.S. National Parks Service, which resulted in permits for travel to Glacier Bay in 2011.
We are disturbed that many media outlets have published FOE’s report without doing their homework. A USA Today reader commented back to us: “Kudos on being ISO 14001 certified. As a member of ASQ and a Certified Auditor, I know this is not an easy achievement.”
A thorough evaluation would consider all waste streams and the effort to address all of these. We encourage everyone to do their own due diligence before taking such inaccurate and incomplete information at face value.
Good group! They sit at home
Good group! They sit at home and use the net - their quote 'Keever said her organization used information culled from the Internet, government and other public sources, the cruise lines and their sustainability reports as a basis for the grades.'
İ am getting tired about hearing of report cards all the various kiddie groups make up and try to present as something important. This gives green a bad name!