Friends of the Earth 2019 Cruise Report Card – Disney Cruise Line Receives an A-

Friends of the Earth released the 2019 edition of their Cruise Ship Report Card, documenting the environmental footprint of the cruise industry by grading 16 cruise lines and their 185 ships.

Disney Cruise Line earned the highest overall grade, earning an A- while the other 15 cruise lines scored a C- or below.

The 2019 report card, last released in 2016, suggests an ongoing lack of initiative by most cruise companies to reduce their air and water pollution impact on travel destinations and local peoples. All seven cruise companies under the Carnival Corporation brand received an F grade from Friends of the Earth documented illegal pollution.

“Carnival Corporation’s despicable behavior shows that we cannot take this polluting industry’s claims of environmental responsibility at face value,” said Marcie Keever, oceans and vessels program director for Friends of the Earth. “This entire industry must be investigated, and held accountable for its destructive behavior. Carnival Corporation should be forced to spend some of their massive profits to clean up the communities they have dumped on. This egregious case of wrongdoing shows just how critically we need federal agency and congressional oversight of cruise industry pollution practices.”

The Grading Scale

According to the Friends of the Earth, the Cruise Ship Report Card ranks the cruise lines and each ship in the respective fleet according to four criteria: Sewage Treatment, Air Pollution Reduction, Water Quality Compliance, and Transparency.

  • To determine a cruise line’s Sewage Treatment grade, FOE compared the number of cruise ships in the cruise line that have installed advanced sewage treatment systems against the total number of ships in the cruise line.
  • To determine the Air Pollution Reduction grade for each ship in a cruise line, ships that dock at a port and plug in to available shoreside power hookups were graded. In addition, ships were given credit if they only utilize low sulfur fuels continuously at levels lower than required by international and U.S. law. Use of scrubbers was no longer considered since the significant majority of scrubbers in use by the cruise industry simply convert air pollution emissions into water pollution through their scrubber wastewater discharges.
  • To determine the Water Quality Compliance grade for ships operating in Alaska, FOE used notices of violation issued for individual cruise ships to each cruise line by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation from 2010 to 2018. Ships were given an ‘N/A’ if they traveled to Alaska but avoided Alaska’s strong water quality standards by discharging outside of those protected waters or if they didn’t travel to Alaska at all.
  • To determine the Transparency grade for each cruise line FOE graded each line based on whether it responded to our 2019 requests for information regarding their environmental practices.

FOE Cruise Ship Report Card 2016

Disney Cruise Line | Friends of the Earth Annual Grades
Year Sewage
Treatment
Air Pollution
Reduction
Water Quality
Compliance
Transparency Final Grade
2009 F F N/A F
2010 A F N/A C-
2011 FOE.org did not issue a Cruise Report Card
2012 A B- N/A A-
2013 A B A A
2014 A B- A F C+
2015 FOE.org did not issue a Cruise Report Card
2016 A C- A A A-
2017 FOE.org did not issue a Cruise Report Card
2018 FOE.org did not issue a Cruise Report Card
2019 A D+ A A A-
Click on the year to view complete FOE.org Cruise Report card.
N/A – No discharge in Alaskan waters

The following are the grades for each of the Disney Cruise Line ships. The overall grades for 2019 were relatively the same for each ship as the 2016 grades with the exception of the Dream and Fantasy dropping from a B+’s to a B- and B respectively due to a drop in each ships 2019 Air Pollution score.

FOE 2019 Disney Cruise Ship Grades

Disney Cruise Line | Friends of the Earth Annual Grades by Ship
Year Sewage
Treatment
Air Pollution
Reduction
Water Quality
Compliance
Final Grade
M W D F M W D F M W D F M W D F
2009 F F F F N/A N/A F F
2010 A A F F N/A N/A C- C-
2011 FOE.org did not issue a Cruise Report Card
2012 A A A A F A C C N/A N/A N/A N/A C- B+ B+ B+
2013 A A A A F A C C N/A A N/A N/A C- A B+ B+
2014 A A A A F A C C N/A A N/A N/A C- A B+ B+
2015 FOE.org did not issue a Cruise Report Card
2016 A A A A F A- A A N/A A N/A N/A C- A B+ B+
2017 FOE.org did not issue a Cruise Report Card
2018 FOE.org did not issue a Cruise Report Card
2019 A A A A F A C- C- N/A A N/A N/A C- A B- B
Click on the year to view complete FOE.org Cruise Report card.
M-Disney Magic, W-Disney Wonder, D-Disney Dream, F-Disney Fantasy
N/A – No discharge in Alaskan waters

To read more about how the other cruise lines measured up and your other favorite cruise ships, click over to the full 2019 Friends of the Earth Cruise Ship report card.

2 Replies to “Friends of the Earth 2019 Cruise Report Card – Disney Cruise Line Receives an A-”

  1. Bruce

    Obviously this data group does not have any credibility with cruise lines. No participation so report is bogus. Do not post until they get good data. Try to report a group that works an issue, not generate one without the facts.

    Reply

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