The important thing for us is that we accept our societal responsibility and make a contribution to sustainable development both in Germany and abroad. ‘AIDA cares’ is therefore not only the name of our sustainability program but is also an expression of our self-perception in our interactions with others.
Success without other people is inconceivable for us, which is why we give part of our success back to society in a range of ways. In 2018, we supported a wide range of social and cultural projects with more than €435,000. Our donations were distributed in accordance with our donation guidelines. This means that our donations committee reached its decisions transparently and in accordance with specified criteria.
AIDA also supports rebuilding projects in regions that have been devastated by natural catastrophes, such as in the Philippines and the Caribbean. As part of a corporation-wide aid program, AIDA Cruises donated €100,000 to UNICEF in order to launch joint projects that would assist with reconstruction after natural catastrophes on Caribbean islands. In total, the Carnival Foundation, the Miami HEAT Charitable Fund and the Micky and Madeleine Arison Foundation put forward 10 million US dollars.
AIDA Cruise & Help
Launched in May 2019, AIDA Cruise & Help forms the umbrella for all our charitable projects. The focus is particularly on achieving long-term improvements in the future prospects of children and adolescents in emerging and developing countries, as well as on social and cultural projects on a regional and international scale.
There is a strong connection with many of these regions. For one thing, these areas are the homes of many AIDA crew members, and on the other hand, they are also destinations for our ships. This is why AIDA chose Cebu City, in the north-east of the island of the same name, as the location for its first school. Its partner in this aid project is the Reiner Meutsch Stiftung FLY & HELP.
In 2018 we donated €42,265 to the FLY & HELP foundation to assist with the construction of a new primary school in the Philippines. The first AIDA school was opened on May 9, 2019 in Cebu, an eastern region of the Philippines that was devastated by flooding and typhoons.
Plans are in progress for further schools. In the course of various charity events on board our ships and on land, we managed to raise more than €200,000 for the project within a few months. Regular campaigns in support of AIDA Cruise & Help will follow both on land and at sea. 100 percent of donations received will be passed on to charitable organizations.
Over the past year we have also continued our long-standing commitment to SOS-Kinderdorf e.V. and were able to give the organization a donation of €12,500 for their work. Since 2005, AIDA Cruises has supported various SOS Kinderdorf e.V. projects in Germany, Africa, Asia and in the Caribbean with donations amounting to more than one million euros.
Putting a smile on children’s faces is simply a must for us. As a partner of the RTL Donation Marathon, AIDA donated €100,000 to the charity “Stiftung RTL - Wir helfen Kindern e.V”. As part of this campaign, children from the RTL Children’s Home Bremen were invited to be guests on AIDAperla in November 2018.
The Costa Group, to which AIDA Cruises belongs, has been involved with Mercy Ships since 2017. This international NGO aims to improve access to basic medical care in developing countries and operates the largest non-military hospital ship in the world - the Africa Mercy - with a crew of over 400 volunteer helpers from 40 different countries. In 2018, several AIDA crew members once again worked as volunteers on board in order to support the crew of the “Africa Mercy” in West Africa. Volunteers from the Africa Mercy also came on board our ships in order to renew their seamanship qualifications, for example, or to take part in training programs.
The crew demonstrated that AIDA cares with many other initiatives. For example, team members from AIDAvita visited a day care center in Praia on the Cape Verde Islands in early 2018 in order to bring joy to disadvantaged children with gifts. We also supported various institutions closer to home, such as the Kalis Kinderwelten nursery and the booster club of St Michael’s School in Rostock.
In late 2017 AIDA Cruises hosted the “Goldene Bild der Frau” Award ceremony, at which six women were distinguished for their volunteer work and moral courage by Europe’s largest women’s magazine. AIDA president Felix Eichhorn also stepped on board AIDAprima to give each of the prize winners further appreciation in form of an additional donation of €10,000 to support their projects. In 2018 these donations benefited six charitable projects: Orang-Utans in Not e.V., SchaKI e.V., Madamfo Ghana e.V., Nana - Recover your Smile e.V., Über den Tellerrand e.V. and Sylke Hoss/Carpe Diem e.V..
In 2018 we supported five students at the University of Rostock and the Universities of Applied Sciences in Wismar and Stralsund as part of the so-called Deutschlandstipendien (German scholarship) program. After completing his studies, last year one of the scholars from 2017 began his career at AIDA Cruises.
We likewise continued our collaboration with the Wismar University of Applied Sciences with regard to maritime degree courses, special qualifications and supporting students in the cruise industry. We further support the Marine Electronics course by providing an endowed professorship.
In 2018 we extended our sponsorship of a green sea turtle called Frieda in the Deutsches Meeresmuseum (German ocean’s museum) in Stralsund in order to draw attention to the threats that this species and others face in our oceans.
AIDA Cruises was also active in promoting sporting activities. To this end we sponsored the two-time rowing world champion Hannes Ocik, the stroke of the German Men’s Eight and an Olympic silver medalist at the Rio games in 2016. We also gave our backing to other sports clubs in the local region, such as Rostocker Segelverein Citybootshafen e.V., the Polizeisportverein Schwerin e.V. and sporting activities run by AIDA’s staff teams, such as beach volleyball, soccer and dragon boat racing.
Cultural diversity
Cultural diversity is a key component in the DNA of AIDA Cruises. We work in an international team from more than 50 nations.
Open-mindedness, respect, tolerance and teamwork between people of different nationalities are deep-seated principles in our company.
These values are common practice in AIDA and are one of the reasons why AIDA continued its support of the “MIGRO” migrant’s council, a communal body run by the Rostock township that stands up for the interests of the city’s foreign-born residents.
Last year, the Hanseatic City of Rostock celebrated the 800th anniversary of its founding. Open-mindedness and tolerance are among the Hanseatic League’s oldest traditions. In keeping with this principle, we supported an initiative run by Rostock Art Museum to bring the “Ship of Tolerance”, a global art project set up by the artists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, to Germany for the first time. The Ship of Tolerance lay at anchor for several months’ last summer right in front of AIDA Cruises’ headquarters.
AIDA Cruises has been the main sponsor of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Festival for more than 16 years, which is one of the most important classic music festivals in Germany. AIDA likewise supported the organization of the 94th “Bachfest”, which took place in May 2019 with many prestigious artists at more than 50 events in Rostock.
In 2018, AIDA Cruises was once again involved in various research projects aimed at driving forward the development of new technologies that will help to protect the environment.
Together with partners from the research, science and business sectors, we have been performing pioneering work for many years in researching and implementing alternative propulsion technologies and modern environmental technology. We will be consistently continuing down this path.
AIDA Cruises has been involved in the Pa-X-ell 2 research project - part of the e4ships program - since 2009. This project focusses on assessing the ecological, technical and economic impacts of using fuel cells on board ships. Another essential component of this project is the formulation of rules and standards for the approval and installation of fuel cells on ships and the use of low-emission fuels. In 2017, the Pa-X-ell 2 project marked the start of a new phase of e4ships. The plan is to test the use of fuel cells on board our new generation of ships as part of the project in 2021. The first LNG cruise ship in this series, AIDAnova, was brought into service in December 2018. Two more of these innovative ships will be built at the MEYER WERFT in Papenburg, Germany, by 2023.
The NAUTEK project, which was supported by AIDA Cruises, was successfully completed in 2016. NAUTEK looked at the possibilities for processing, cleaning and reusing wastewater on cruise ships and delivered very promising results. The next research phase was launched in 2017 in the form of the follow-up project CLEAN, in which organic waste generated on board (e.g. food waste and sewage) can be converted into energy in biogas plants. Urea produced on board could likewise be used in the future in the form of an additive Ad Blue to help in cleaning exhaust gases. After successful tests in biogas plants on land, the first onboard practical tests in the use of biological waste for energy production are planned for 2020.
So far, only around five percent of the seabed has been surveyed. Precise knowledge of the condition is an important requirement in supporting the UN’s Goal 14 on protecting marine life and using marine resources in a sustainable manner. The international initiative “Seabed 2030”, a coalition of global institutions, has set itself the aim of surveying the oceans by 2030 and making the data publicly available as a bathymetric model. AIDA Cruises supports this research project and started delivering measurement data from its cruise ships to the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) in 2018.
One component of our approach to sustainability, alongside technical efficiency, is our all-round quality strategy. Our aim is for all our products and services to consume fewer resources and thereby have a positive effect on society and the environment. We keep this in mind at all times and with every decision made we consider the overall context and potential consequences. This applies both to our conduct and that of our partners.
We have developed a corporation-wide code of conduct and ethics for business partners so that our suppliers can understand and comply with our legal and ethical requirements. The code contains requirements pertaining to preserving the environment, worker and human rights as well as health and safety measures, to which our partners must subscribe. Our anti-corruption standards and antitrust law provisions are also binding for all our business partners.
We question all of our suppliers about their compliance with the various legal and ethical standards by means of a supplier assessment questionnaire. This survey, which covers such areas as quality assurance, environmental protection, hygiene, workplace safety, health protection and social engagement, is subject to continuous development and improvement across the corporation.
Each year we place around 70,000 orders for a wide range of products. When purchasing products, we make sure that, wherever possible, they are reusable and can be reintroduced into biological or technical life cycles. Our aspiration is to reduce the accrual of actual waste products to an absolute minimum. In the long run, we aim gradually to check all existing products such as furniture, work clothes or foodstuffs in order to establish whether they can be reintroduced into biological and technical cycles, and to adapt or replace these things as necessary.
We are increasing the range of organic and fair trade foods that we offer. Organic lemonades, teas and coffees can be acquired in our bars and restaurants. In the Buffalo Steakhouse, fairtrade pork is prepared for our guests. We buy more than half of the fruit and vegetables from vendors in our destination regions, and we always ask our suppliers to provide us with cage-free eggs.
We also offer fair trade chocolate made by Original Beans. 4,472 kilograms of this chocolate were consumed on board in 2018 alone. This guaranteed the livelihoods of five cocoa farmers and their families, protected 55,200 trees, financed the planting of 18,400 new trees and capture 14.6 tons of CO2.
None of the cosmetics and very few of the cleaning products on board the AIDA fleet contain any microplastics. In the Body & Soul Spa, we offer our guests premium-quality and certified organic grooming with purely natural ingredients that carry the EcoControl and Icada seals.
We have been using recyclable carpets that bear the “Cradle to Cradle” seal in crew areas on board since 2013. All of the passenger areas on AIDAprima, AIDAperla and AIDAnova are moreover fitted with environmentally friendly carpets. These are manufactured using natural and renewable raw materials, largely being made out of lamb’s wool. They also comply with the strict standards of the Green Label Plus scheme run by the Carpet and Rug Institute. As soon as the carpets reach the end of their first life cycle on board, they will be given back to the manufacturer as part of an exclusive Take Back program.
More information:
Sustainability report of the Carnival Corporation & plc
Code of Conduct and Ethics