Carnival Corporation is already on track to meet its 2030 greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction target four years early relative to a 2019 baseline. The 2030 goal was to reduce GHG emissions by 20 percent. By the end of last year, Carnival had already reached a 17 percent reduction in emissions compared to 2019 and 41 percent compared to 2008.
There are basically three initiatives that have contributed to driving down emissions, according to John Haeflinger, senior vice president, maritime policy and analysis.
“One is our fleet modernization. We have eliminated older, less efficient ships, and replaced them with modern, more efficient ones,” he said.
“The second thing we have done is invest in our legacy fleet, making the ships more energy efficient.
“And third is that we are continuously optimizing our itineraries whereby we take our guests to where they want to go in the smartest way possible.”
Decarbonization plays a major role, and Carnival has named its first-ever decarbonization executive, Marcel Goncalves, vice president of decarbonization.
As for gaining energy efficiencies, Goncalves said that all options are on the table, and investments have been made across all disciplines. But the biggest gains by far have been achieved through HVAC.
Goncalves added: “We are now getting to the point where we are integrating systems and taking a very hard look at waste heat recovery. Recovering heat from burning fuel, we can produce electricity, freshwater, a number of things.
“We are also looking at what capital investments we need to make to make sure we can get the most out of this ‘free’ energy.”
Meanwhile, Goncalves said he gets real time data from all the ships and that everything is monitored, measured and analyzed to ensure the ships are operated efficiently.
“Once itineraries are set, for example, we evaluate how we can operate an itinerary in the most efficient way possible. We apply voyage efficiency tools, which determine what speeds to operate at, making sure we get to the ports at the expected time, and that we burn the least amount of fuel getting there. And that comes down to how you operate the engines as well as the route you take.”
Said Haeflinger: “We led the industry with our decision to go to LNG, and we are still leading the industry in terms of ships running on LNG. It was and still is the cleanest fuel available at scale, although it has been challenging to develop the supply chain to get the fuel to our ships.
“The beauty of the decision to go with LNG is that bio-LNG is available in certain places around the world already, although not yet necessarily at the scale we would need.
“But whether you produce green methanol, green LNG, methane or any other hydrocarbon, the production pathways are very similar. So, I believe green LNG will be available at a scale that will get us to where we need to go (to meet IMO and EU emissions targets) as we move forward to a LNG fleet.”
LNG-fueled ships represent nearly 20 percent of Carnival’s fleet capacity, according to the company’s latest sustainability report, and six more are on order through 2033. In addition, 70 percent of the fleet has shore power connection capability.
Resetting goals means that Carnival is now looking to have 25 percent of its fleet capacity LNG capable by 2030 and 80 percent with shore power.
Excerpt from the Cruise Industry News Quarterly Magazine Fall 2025
