For us sustainability means protecting the environment, supporting the people who work with us and choose to travel with us, as well as the communities and ports that we call in.  We’ve worked so hard on this aspect that we’ve been recognized as Porthole Reader’s Choice Award for Most Eco-Friendly Cruise Line and been awarded with Maritime Industry Category Award by the North American Marine Environment Protection Association at the 2020 Marine Environment Protection Awards.

 

Four Areas of Focus

 

Our sustainability programme is organised around four key pillars: Planet, People, Place and Procurement. This translates into a drive to continuously improve our fleet’s environmental performance; caring for all employees and promoting diversity and inclusion; working to ensure that our impact on the coastal communities that we reach remains positive; and responsibly sourcing the products and services that we purchase.

 

 

Planet

Our long-term goal is to achieve zero emissions across all operations, at sea and ashore. We’ve also focused on reducing plastic waste. In 2018 we identified the items that represented the majority of our plastic waste and by the end of 2019 had replaced each of them with an environmentally-friendly alternative.

 

People

MSC Cruises employs tens of thousands of people worldwide from 124 different nationalities, and thanks to our expansion plan these numbers are set to increase. Women already make up more than half of our shoreside staff and our aim is to further increase onboard female staff. 

 

Place

We typically work with tour providers who employ locally and support them as they build their business. This helps to create jobs and engage with the local community.  

 

Procurement

From large mechanical parts for our ships to ingredients to feed thousands of people at a time, down to the smallest details, like toiletries and medical items, we need to buy a huge amount of supplies for our fleet, crew and guests. Managing environmental, social and ethical issues in our supply chain is critical, and we take a robust approach to this across all areas of procurement.

 

A move towards sustainability is not only the right thing to do, it’s a must for society as a whole. Every day the choices we make have an impact; at home, at work, outdoors, in the things we buy, in our leisure time and on holiday.  To find out more details about how MSC Cruises is contributing, follow the link below to the full report.