New five-year partnership to establish ambitious, measurable sustainability goals for groundbreaking progress across ship, sea and shore.

Royal Caribbean Group has announced its new commitment to the next phase of its ongoing partnership with World Wildlife Fund (WWF) for guidance and counsel in establishing environmental goals and sustainable business practices.

“Healthy, sustainable oceans are paramount to our mission of delivering the best vacations responsibly,” said Royal Caribbean Group CEO Jason Liberty. “Our partnership with WWF encapsulates our belief in continuous improvement and our commitment to advancing our environmental, social and governance (ESG) work. The support and assistance of WWF will be invaluable to realizing this mission as we work to set and achieve our sustainability goals.”

Royal Caribbean Group first partnered with WWF in 2016. Since then, WWF has advised Royal Caribbean Group to embed sustainability into the core of the company’s business and across the industry, promote responsible tourism in priority coastal destinations and help protect the oceans by investing in conservation programs globally. This included establishing bold 2020 sustainability goals that the company has met or exceeded, with the exception of the sustainable seafood sourcing target, which was impacted by global suspension of service from the pandemic.

The cruise industry has seen repeated calls for more progress on sustainable travel, particularly in relation to the use of fuel and waste disposal.

The next five years of the partnership will focus on setting ambitious, measurable sustainability targets around the reduction of carbon emissions, the sustainable growth and development of the business, sustainable commodity sourcing and tourism, the elimination of single-use plastics and waste management, among other areas.

“Scale matters, particularly in the face of global challenges like climate change and ocean conservation. We’re grateful for the progress Royal Caribbean Group has made toward achieving its sustainability goals since 2016, and we’re energized by an ambition for even greater things to come,” said Carter Roberts, President and CEO of WWF-US. “Our work together is grounded in the reality that people everywhere – from local communities and Indigenous peoples to urban residents and tourists – rely on the ocean for food, livelihoods, and enrichment. We’re committed to doing everything possible to keep ocean ecosystems thriving for the benefit of all people, as well as the many other creatures for whom the ocean is their home.

Royal Caribbean sets forth its sustainability mission and goals on its website. There, the cruise line stipulates its endorsement of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) standards, focused on making destinations and shore excursions more sustainable by working with tour operators and local governments, and offering GSTC-certified tours to our guests.

This year, WWF and Royal Caribbean Group will work together to establish sustainability goals across three key areas of Ship, Sea and Shore:

• Ship — Continuous improvement of operational sustainability, including emissions, marine mammal protection, seafood sourcing, plastics reduction, and food waste.
• Sea — Investing in ocean health through targeted philanthropy; engaging with a global science-driven agenda and consumer-facing education and fundraising campaigns.
• Shore — Embedding principles of sustainable development in projects and increasing sustainability and certification of tour operators.

Royal Caribbean Group will also continue to provide financial support to WWF’s global ocean conservation work through a $5 million philanthropic contribution and collaborate with WWF to build global awareness about ocean conservation issues among Royal Caribbean Group’s millions of guests.

The renewal of the partnership with WWF builds on Royal Caribbean Group’s broader decarbonization strategy, focused on establishing Science-Based Targets (SBT).

As late as 1986, coal miners in the UK still carried canaries to detect carbon monoxide fumes in the mines.

If the canary died, trouble was afoot. These days, the World Wildlife Federation publishes a “species directory” – a list of endangered, vulnerable, and threatened animals and I find it ironic that the list has not been expanded to include humans. Perhaps it would be wrong to list humans under both threatened species and causation because no doubt there is a self-destructive gene somewhere in the human DNA spiral, and it seems to be expressing itself with increasing regularity.

So what has this to do with the travel industry?

The long-term health of our industry depends on what amounts in many cases to self-regulation. Tour operators and cruise lines operate without a great deal of oversight, even in the face of legal regulation and social pressure. Too often, a bit of excess oil is intentionally dumped overboard in our oceans or fragile environmental systems face the consequences of increasing numbers of affluent tourists. Climate change now hangs heavy over many destinations as ocean levels rise and glaciers melt. The ivory trade threatens the very existence of the planet’s largest mammals as thousands of elephants and rhinos are slaughtered for trinkets and pseudo medicines.   There are still porters in Peru and Tanzania who continue to work under inhumane conditions. Men from the United States travel to Thailand, Guatemala, and central Europe for encounters with underage victims of the sex trade.

As a travel professional, you can ensure your clients are informed of these problems, are aware of the issues involved, the countermeasures, and the travel industry’s responsibility for negating each.

In many cases, the real cost of the environmental impact is “off-balance-sheet” – absorbed by the environment rather than by the traveler. The cumulative effects often show in places where we least want to observe the impact of humanity. But it is not only the environment per se that bears the brunt of tourism’s numbers. Trafficking in human slavery, the exploitation of animals, and of cheap labor are all intersected at some point by our profession.

These are not esoteric causes, but problems at the heart of some of the planet’s most correctable pathologies. Some of the key points worth noting:

• While consumers believe travel service suppliers should be good stewards of their environment, over half (54%) also believe that individuals themselves have the greatest responsibility for preserving and protecting the environment.
• Six out of ten (58%) travelers say they believe that environmental programs by travel service suppliers could have a positive effect on the environment.
• The majority (51%) of consumers will continue to patronize “green” travel service suppliers regardless of an economic downturn. In fact, nearly half (48%) of travelers say that continuing to support environmentally-responsible travel service suppliers is a necessity, even in an economic downturn.
• Less than one-third (29%) say it is easy to find out about environmental policies and initiatives of travel service suppliers

These key findings hold the promise of gradual evolution to a more sustainable travel industry. Travel professionals can be an important catalyst in the transformation of our industry from a 19th-century model to a 21st-century ideal. If fewer than one-third of travelers find it easy to obtain information on sustainable travel, there is a role for the socially conscious travel consultant to play.

Many might argue travel is itself a part of the problem.  The footprint of tourism is heavy and deep and our impact on some very fragile environments is significant.  Yet, it is balanced by the opportunity for millions of people to acquaint themselves with new cultures, new ways of thinking, an expanded vision of being a world citizen. We can only hope. We can certainly do our part in playing a positive role to offset the negative influences of travel and tourism.

Many tour operators have been taking very direct actions toward sustainable travel for years. Companies like Intrepid and G Adventures have blazed a trail for us, but there is so much more to be done.

Collectively, our profession touches millions of people each year. Pick a good cause. Educate yourself. Pass along just a small bit of information to your clients each and every time you engage in a travel planning effort. Help to make us all better world citizens. Make sustainable travel an issue. Because it is. The evidence indicates your clients want this type of information.  Who better to provide it than a travel professional?

We will not always get second chances. Somewhere, a canary just lost its wings.