#ECOcruiseship? - Solar panelled covered sails, tanks that run on kitchen waste and an on-board garden fed by rainwater, this striking vessel has been described as the world’s “greenest” cruise ship, so writes The Telegraph.

Designs for what has been labelled the world’s “greenest” cruise ship have been finalised – while an announcement regarding dates for its maiden voyage, pencilled in for 2020, is expected at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris this month.

The 55,000-ton Ecoship was developed by a team of more than 30 engineers and experts and features a host of environmentally-friendly features, the most striking of which are 10 retractable sails covered in solar panels. 

For more click here in addition to an artists impression and technical line drawings. 

#HurtigrutenHybrid - Hurtigruten, the Norwegian coastal and polar cruise line, has confirmed its ambition to offer expedition voyages on ships powered by battery technology and algae fuel.

“The cruise and the maritime transport industries must accept greater environmental responsibility. Hurtigruten is already strongly committed. Rapid progress also requires appropriate political framework and the obligation from the maritime sector as a whole”, says Hurtigruten’s CEO Daniel Skjeldam from the Paris climate change conference.

To deliver what has been achieved for instance in the car sector in recent years, he calls for brave and innovative politicians. “We need political carrots and sticks to stimulate the market in utilising green technology.”

Hurtigruten has recently partnered with the Bellona Foundation, a Norwegian leading international environmental NGO, to explore how the vison of offering zero emission explorer cruises may materialise.

“We consider Hurtigruten’s reach-out to be a very credible and inspiring expression of their willingness to contribute to achieving the objective of emission-free global shipping and sea travel” says Bellona President Frederic Hauge.

The foundation is working alongside Hurtigruten to conduct a feasibility study to learn more about how the current fleet can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and how in future Hurtigruten hybrid ships can be developed.

Anthony Daniels, Head of sales for UK and Ireland commented “These are exciting times for Hurtigruten. We are an ambitious business with plans for growth, but our goal is to work with the industry to deliver that in a sustainable and responsible way.”

#COP21shipping- As the Conference of Parties (COP21) on Climate Change began in Paris today, Afloat.ie looks back on Brittany Ferries seasonal Cork-Roscoff route cruiseferry, Pont-Aven. In 2016 their flagship on the French service will be the only ferry operating in Irish waters fitted with emission ‘scrubber’ technology, writes Jehan Ashmore.

The installation of emission reducing technology systems due to be completed early next year on the Pont-Aven, follows stricter ‘green’ controls under the EU’s Environmental Low Sulphur Directive introduced at the beginning of this year. Already other ferries in the fleet have been equipped with scrubbers at a Spanish yard. 

Irish waters are not part of a sulphur zone, SECA (Sulphur Emission Control Area), however as Pont-Aven also operates a route on the English Channel, this geographical area is a SECA zone along with the North Sea and the Baltic.

As the efforts to reduce the cocktail of harmful pollutants rise, French-owned global container giant, the CMA CGM group, announced last week a 50% improvement in its carbon dioxide (CO2) performance for its owned fleet.

The company cite that this due to an efficient environmental policy sustained by deploying innovative solutions, and that this success was accomplished in 10 years.

CMA-CGM claim that currently a container emits approximately 60 grams of CO2 per kilometre, compared to 120 grams in 2005. The Group best-performing ships emit 37 grams of CO2 per container transported, such as the CMA CGM Bougainville which can carry up to 200,000 tons of goods in 18,000 containers.

Shipping today is the most environmentally friendly transport mode: it is 70 times less polluting than flight transportation.

NOTE: For a Graph showing the reduction of CO2 g/ TEU* km, this can be consulted HERE along with an image of containership equipped with various environmental features. * TEU (Twenty Equivalent Unit) i.e. a 20 foot long container.

In addition to further read details on CMA CGM’s article, click the same link for the graph and containership image, by clicking HERE.

Returning to the context of the ferry industry, critics of the EU Sulphur Directive, have claimed that the costs to introduce the technology on such ships was exoribant and that this was a leading contributor to the closure of certain routes.

This in turn had the consequent effect of notably driving heavy goods vehicles (HGV’s) back onto road networks. The increase in volumes leading in turn to congestion and polluting emissions.

A prime example of a route closure attributed to the directive, was DFDS Seaways Harwich-Esbjerg route, the Danish service which closed in 2014 represented the last scheduled ferry service between the UK and Scandinavia.

The nearest alternative route is Newscastle-Ijmuiden (Amsterdam) incidently a DFDS service, though the company does operate direct 'freight' only routes from Immingham in the UK to Scandinavia.