Carnival Cuts Fleet CO2 Emissions by 12bn Kilograms

Carnival Corporation says by the end of the year it will have saved more than 1 billion gallons of fuel and reduced fleet carbon emissions by 12 billion kilograms over a seven-year period.

The results of the world’s largest cruise company’s multi-year Fleet Fuel Conservation Program show that by the end of 2014, Carnival will have improved the fleet’s overall fuel efficiency by 24 percent, compared to 2007, while saving about $2.5 billion in fuel costs, the company’s single biggest expense.

Carnival’s Fleet Fuel Conservation Program combines energy-saving programs onboard current ships with energy-efficient ship designs to reduce energy consumption and boost fuel efficiency across its fleet of over 100 ships. These efforts include:

• Improving how the ship moves through the water by optimizing ship speeds and cruise distances to design more fuel-efficient itineraries, significantly reducing energy and fuel consumption.
• Using hull coatings and cleaning technologies to minimize the growth of marine organisms that create drag on the hull, which reduces the amount of fuel needed to move the ship through water.
• Installing energy-efficient A/C systems to help reduce the energy used to cool the ships, which is the second largest consumer of onboard energy after propulsion.
• Replacing traditional lighting with more efficient LED bulbs; the company continues the process of replacing four million lights across the fleet.
• While producing 73 percent of water used onboard its ships, Carnival is reducing the rate of onboard water usage and finding more efficient ways to produce water, including better use of engine heat to convert sea water to fresh water and installation of reverse osmosis systems.

Earlier this year Carnival announced plans to increase installations of its industry-first exhaust gas cleaning technology to more than 70 vessels. The expansion, covering more than 70 percent of its entire fleet, represents an increase from the 32 ships announced in September 2013.