Costa Cruises awarded by RINA Group with “2011 Green Cruise” prize

Costa Cruises, the largest Italian travel group and Europe’s number one cruise company, has been awarded by RINA Group with the prize, '2011 Green Cruise'. The ceremony took place in Montecarlo, during the 'RINA Green Night' event sponsored by the RINA Group, which awards the best projects for environmental sustainability. For the first time the event included a category dedicated to cruise ships, where Costa Cruises won. On July 2, 2011, in Trieste, on the occasion of her naming ceremony, Costa’s new flagship Costa Favolosa, a cutting-edge ship in terms of environmental protection, received ‘Green Plus’ notation.

‘Green Plus’ is the highest notation assigned by RINA Group to ships that are environmentally compliant. ‘Green Plus’ is a voluntary notation certifying compliance with environmental protection standards that are far stricter than the provisions of the international MARPOL Convention. ‘Green Plus’ takes account of some 11 different pollution sources for vessels (including garbage, gray water, sewage, oily wastes from machinery spaces, CO2, ozone depleting substances, greenhouse gases, particulate matter, sulfur oxides, nitrogen and ballast water) and lays down specific restrictions for each one.