Cruise companies aim to be ‘net zero' by 2050. Can they do it?
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Cruising is more popular than ever, according to the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), a trade body that represents about 95 per cent of the world's passenger cruise vessels. In 2024, the number of ships belonging to CLIA members surpassed 300 for the first time, with a capacity of more than 635,000 passengers. The year before, as the effects of the pandemic wore off, CLIA had seen the highest-ever number of passengers – more than 31.7 million – take a cruise, generating US$168.6 billion in economic impact. And forecasts show continued growth, with more than two dozen ships – capable of carrying nearly 40,000 passengers – set to launch this year.
But with a medium-sized liner emitting
as much pollution as 12,000 cars , according to the Marine Pollution Bulletin, and the most popular ports of call struggling to cope with the sudden arrival of thousands of visitors at a time, as well as a long history of ecological negligence, cruise operators are having to heed the call to steer a more ethical course – one that is uncharted and carries no guarantees of
sustainability
'Sustainability is indeed an incredibly complex topic and I would resist the temptation to find a black or white answer to this big question,' says Akvile Marozaite, CEO of Expedition Cruise Network, a voice for companies that use smaller ships to access remote places.
First, however, it's worth putting the industry into context. The economic activity of cruising amounts to about 2 per cent of the global travel and tourism sector, and cruise ships comprise less than 1 per cent of the world's commercial fleet, which is dominated by cargo and container ships, tankers and ferries. It's not quite the juggernaut some fear it is.
Cruise ships the Queen Elizabeth (foreground) and the Norwegian Sky berthed at Hong Kong's Kai Tak Cruise Terminal last month. Photo: Sam Tsang
Nevertheless, cruise operators have placed heavy emphasis on a sustainable future. CLIA member companies are aiming to become
'net zero' , which means achieving a state in which the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere is balanced by the amount removed, by 2050. And individual companies have set even more ambitious goals.
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