Everyday practice

We don’t just want to impress our guests with our outstanding service. We also want to design our services to be as sustainable as possible. Our bike, Segway and E-Bike excursions perfectly illustrate the fact that protecting the environment is a lot of fun. We are always careful to ensure that waste is disposed of or taken back on board during shoreside excursions. And in our diving excursions, we make sure that our guests can wonder at the underwater world, but without touching anything as this ecosystem in particular is very fragile. We do not visit dolphinariums because of animal welfare. At AIDA, we like to lead by example. We sensitize our guests to sustainability and generate enthusiasm for it.

At the end of 2012, we introduced what we like to call an environmental hour on board the first ships. Here, our environmental officers tell interested guests about our commitment and answer their questions. Our environmental officers play a central role on board. It is their task to ensure that national and international environmental protection legislation is respected. We base our activities on the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) and on the provisions of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), a United Nations specialized agency. Our environmental officers are supported by our internal sustainability organization and our integrated management system. What’s more, the officers are also responsible for waste management and training employees about environmental issues.

The active involvement of all of our employees is essential for the success of our environmental strategy. From day one, we sensitize them to the responsible use of natural resources – at regular training sessions, for example. Every crew member completes a special environmental training program on how to deal correctly with resources, waste water and waste. Our officers also receive job specific training which specially prepares them for the environment-specific requirements of their daily work on deck or in the engine room. Transparency is particularly important here. In the event of legal or internal amendments, employees are immediately informed of the changes that are being made to everyday working procedures, and the reasons for these. Because at the end of the day, we don’t just want our employees to act in an environmentally friendly way to comply with regulations; we also want them to know why it is that we ask this.

We can also achieve a great deal on board by being more environmentally aware. We are making savings of around 30% to the connected load in the hotel lighting of all ships from AIDAsol on with innovative lighting equipment and a comprehensive light management system. Of course, we have to call on the support of our employees and guests in this area, in order to save the corresponding power. To ensure that lights and air conditioning are not switched on unnecessarily, each guest on our three newest ships can use a key card switch to switch lights on and off when they enter or leave their cabin. All cabins in the new ships are also equipped with a modern air recirculation system which includes waste heat recovery. This saves even more energy as the temperature in each cabin is controlled separately (HVAC control system). This modern technology reduces energy consumption in the cabins by up to 20%. We only use refrigerants which do not damage the ozone layer that protects the earth. This has allowed us to reduce emissions of ozone-depleting refrigerants to zero.

Saving water is also an important issue at AIDA. Our guests are using less and less water – quite automatically. That’s because we have moved over to water-saving appliances such as special shower heads, flow regulators on wash hand basins and showers, and timer and infrared switches in washroom areas. Furthermore, a vacuum system is used to operate toilet flushing. This particularly water-effective system means that only one liter of water is used per flush. We have also installed a vacuum food waste system on our new ships. This uses considerably less water than conventional food waste disposal systems. That’s because instead of the waste being pumped through pipes with water, we transport it to the waste storage tank using a vacuum system. All of this is based on the MARPOL Convention of the UN’s International Maritime Organization (IMO). It contains guidelines for ocean protection and also defines individual emissions regulations for special areas such as the North and Baltic Seas. In accordance with MARPOL regulations, there is a ban on the disposal of untreated waste in the Baltic Sea within twelve nautical miles of the coast. We go one step further and base our practices on our own Zero Discharge Policy. What does this mean? It means that strictly no untreated waste water is discharged in the ocean by AIDA ships.