DNV's Environmental Class

The Royal Caribbean International (RCI) newbuilding Millennium is the first ship built to DNV's new voluntary class notation CLEAN DESIGN. It is the first of a new series of 'green ships' for RCI. The RCI company Celebrity Cruises is building Millennium to Lloyds Register class. However, it was decided to include DNV's new voluntary class notation CLEAN DESIGN to bring the newbuilding to the forefront of environmental responsibility.

In line with DNV's objective of safeguarding life, property and the environment, Environmental Class comprises new voluntary class notations available to ships embodying measures to reduce possible environmental consequences.To meet the wide variety of ship types and trading patterns, two class notations CLEAN and CLEAN DESIGN have been introduced, comprising three main areas: emissions to air, operational discharges to sea, and accidental discharges to sea. Accidental discharges are only covered in CLEAN DESIGN. The two notations are comparable, CLEAN DESIGN being the stricter.

CLEAN is primarily for ships in deep-sea trading, but may also be applied to other vessels. It may be implemented on board existing ships with limited investment costs.
CLEAN DESIGN is suitable for ships trading in coastal waters and short-sea shipping, in particular for cruise ships and ferries. It includes stricter requirements to prevent local pollution, from both operational and accidental emissions and discharges. Unless particular care has been taken during design and construction, this class notation is best suited to new ships. The idea behind it is that a 'zero discharge' solution should be possible for a number of the pollution components.

For Millennium CLEAN DESIGN means technically advanced systems, low Nox-emission gas turbines, an advanced waste-management system, fuel tanks in protected locations and use of non-TBT antifouling. The ship is due to be delivered in May from Chantiers de L'Atlantique, St. Nazaire, France. Millennium is the first ship built to DNV's new voluntary Class Notation CLEAN DESIGN.

More information: DNV, Robert Loseth