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"Richard Wirth" in the Trollfjord: First place for Hurtigruten
Photo: Henk de Winde / Hurtigruten
If you want to vacation on one of the cleanest cruise fleets, book a voyage along Norway's mail route with Hurtigruten.
That is the conclusion of this year's cruise rankings by the Nature Conservation Union (Nabu).
The Tromsø shipping company already does without heavy fuel oil, wants to put an emission-free ship into service by 2030 and uses shore power.
This allowed her to score points with the environmentalists, who put Hurtigruten Norway in first place.
Something is happening when it comes to clean cruising, and the Nabu also recognizes this.
In the meantime, many, if apparently not all, shipping companies are aware of the relevance in view of climate change: If they want to sell vacations against the backdrop of intact nature, they have to protect it - even if it is for marketing reasons.
Large holiday ships that are powered by the lower-emission liquefied natural gas (LNG) are already sailing the seven seas;
exhaust gases must be filtered;
international rules are increasingly limiting sulfur emissions.
In the North Sea and Baltic Sea, for example, and in ports, the regulations are particularly strict.
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That doesn't go far enough for Nabu: "Environmental and climate protection is often just lip service," says the announcement of the ranking.
»On the tenth anniversary of the Nabu cruise ranking, the results show once again that environmental and climate protection are still not given the necessary priority.
Toxic but cheap, heavy fuel oil remains the fuel of choice for most of the fleet.
Only a few truly future-oriented projects are in the planning and implementation phase.
But natural and climate crises are acute," says Nabu Federal Managing Director Leif Miller.
For their ranking, the testers asked eleven criteria – including the use of heavy fuel oil, commitment to the Paris Agreement, use of shore power and the installation of soot particle filters.
19 points could be achieved, of which even Hurtigruten only achieved half, according to Nabu.
Aida Cruises had to give up its long-standing premium position in the ranking and ended up in second place.
The Rostock shipping company, after all a pioneer in the planning, construction and commissioning of LNG ships, still bunkers heavy fuel oil for the rest of the fleet.
Hapag-Lloyd Cruises, Ponant and TUI Cruises follow in the ranking.
At the bottom of the 19 shipping companies and cruise companies asked are Costa Cruises, to which Aida Cruises belongs, as well as Bonn-based Phoenix Reisen and Marella of the British TUI group.
»No shore power, no access«
For years, Nabu has been demanding that cruise ships use the existing shore power systems while they are in port in order to minimize pollution for local residents.
For a long time, this was technically only possible in a few cities - but even there the offer remained almost unused.
The reasons given by the shipping companies were electricity prices that were too high, a lack of compatibility, a complex certification process and ships that lacked the final equipment for this.
Such facilities only opened in Kiel and Rostock-Warnemünde last year.
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The Hamburg Nabu chairman Malte Siegert states that shore power has been offered in the Hanseatic city for six years, but hardly any of the around 50 ships calling there use it.
He calls for shore power to be mandatory: »The city and the cruise industry are required to keep their promises to residents and to effectively minimize pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions.
It must apply: no shore power, no access!«
The industry association Clia has announced that its members want to be climate-neutral by 2050.
However, Nabu considers the measures taken so far to be too timid and calls for more speed.
"We need stricter laws across the board in order to force a comparable development throughout the industry," says Nabu cruise expert Sönke Diesener, referring to the stricter regulations in Norway and the success of number one in the ranking, Hurtigruten.
He calls for "a general ban on heavy fuel oil, a shore power obligation and an e-fuels quota as well as stricter efficiency requirements and the large-scale designation of zero and low-emission areas at sea."
Fuel cells, batteries, even wind power - the industry is announcing projects for the use of modern technologies.
So far, however, only as small additions to the combustion engine, according to Nabu.
In the race for the first large climate-neutral cruise ship at sea, Diesener sees the shipping company TUI Cruises ahead.
The Hamburg-based shipping company, a joint venture between TUI and Royal Caribbean Cruises, recently started building a ship that, after a corresponding conversion, can use methanol as fuel instead of marine diesel.
However, only as soon as climate-neutrally produced methanol is available for shipping.
Mein Schiff 7, built at the Papenburg Meyer shipyard, is expected to go into service in 2024.
