Andrea Zelinski
Even if you don't sell much Royal Caribbean International, it was hard to ignore the debut of the Icon of the Seas. From ads during this week's NFL playoff games to articles across media outlets, the world's newest, largest cruise ship has gotten a lot of attention over the last few weeks.
Not all of that attention was splashy advertising. Several reports focused on the environmental implications of sailing such a gigantic cruise ship.
"Can the World's Largest Cruise Ship Really Be Climate-Friendly?" asked the New York Times in its headline the day of the ship's naming in Miami. And from Bloomberg's environmental desk: "The World's Largest Cruise Ship Is a Climate Liability."
The Icon is indeed huge. Royal Caribbean executives expect the ship to carry about 10,000 combined guests and crew weekly by the time this summer season hits. That's almost three of my hometowns. The Icon is also home to 40 restaurants, bars and lounges, a six-slide water park and enough space for 28 different cabin categories. No matter what, a ship of this size requires a lot of energy to run.
Royal Caribbean also contends the Icon is a step in a climate-friendly direction. It is the first in Royal's fleet to use liquified natural gas (LNG) and is 24% more fuel-efficient than the Oasis class, Jason Liberty, CEO of Royal Caribbean Group, said during a press conference on an Icon shakedown sailing. The Oasis class was 20% more efficient than the class before that, he said.
"It's a journey, right?" he said. "We keep trying to introduce the technology to advance our goal of getting to a net-zero ship by 2035." He added that the Icon is prepared to receive fuel cells and has a plug for shore power.
The industry as a whole is working to reduce its environmental footprint. CLIA and its partner lines have set a goal for carbon net-zero cruising by 2050.
The Icon uses LNG, which is heralded as a cleaner fuel for emitting about 25% less carbon dioxide than traditional marine fuels, but critics (and the U.S. Environmental Protection agency) have said that LNG is mostly methane which, over time, traps more heat than carbon dioxide. This is also an evolving area, with lines testing out biofuels and planning future ships that use methanol as an alternative fuel.
The International Council on Clean Transportation's marine program found that a guest on the most efficient cruise ship sailing 1,250 nautical miles over five days would be responsible for about 1,100 pounds of CO2, compared to about 518 pounds for roundtrip flights of that same distance and stay at a four-star hotel for the same amount of time. That's a lot of carbon for one cruiser, and it doesn't include a flight if they need one.
That research was not based on a ship as big as the Icon and, in any case, it's difficult to do apples-to-apples comparisons without taking into account the carbon footprint of activities one might do while on land, whether vacationing at a four-star hotel or on a shore excursion during a port call.
While we don't know exactly what the Icon's CO2 footprint is going to be, we do know that the industry of megaships is still on the journey to reach its net zero goals.