WHY IT RATES: The movement to rid the travel world of single-use plastics is very real, and The Travel Corporation is taking a leading role in the fight to keep travel beautiful for generations beyond.—Michael Schottey, TravelPulse Director of Digital Content
Uniworld Boutique River Cruise Collection, the world’s most luxurious all-inclusive river cruise line, celebrates the fifth anniversary of its innovative sustainable river cruising guide with a promise to become single-use plastic free by 2022. Having already removed all plastic straws, water bottles and related single-use items from its ships, Uniworld’s announcement comes on the heels of parent company The Travel Corporation’s commitment to ban the use of many single-use plastic items at its 40 offices worldwide and will phase them out across all operations by 2022.
Written in concert with The Travel Foundation, with support from their not-for-profit foundation, TreadRight, the guide, according to Uniworld president and CEO Ellen Bettridge, was designed to support the river cruise tourism industry as it looked toward a sustainable future and continues to influence the brand as it pursues its place as the most sustainable line on the rivers today.
“Five years ago, we set out to lead the industry with recommended best practices from energy and solid waste to water and environmental management systems. We shared this information with the entire river cruise community because as they say, a rising tide lifts all the boats and we knew it was imperative to work collectively as we set out to approach this global problem,” said Bettridge. “Today, we recognize and celebrate our efforts to make a difference with quantifiable successes because you cannot manage what you don’t measure.”
Following, by the numbers, a list of Uniworld’s successes over the last five years:
—Reduced plastic waste by 27,374kg, removing all plastic straws, water bottles and related single-use plastic items from all ships in the Uniworld line. Beyond the ships, every Uniworld corporate office also now bans single-use plastic items.
—Decreased chemical waste by 80% over last two years across all Uniworld ship.
—Reduced paper waste by 110,278kg in the last two years, and recently initiated the brand’s “One Tree Planted” partnership, planting one tree planted for every e-doc issued by Uniworld.
—Reduced biodegradable waste by 16% last year
In addition to reducing and eliminating onboard waste, Bettridge says Uniworld is also focused on the brand’s efforts to enhance and protect the communities where Uniworld visits. “While making significant strides to eliminate waste is so important, we are equally conscientious of the role we play in being responsible guests of the communities we visit,” said Bettridge.
“CSR [corporate social responsibility] is not a whim or a reaction to a trend but integral to how we do business. It’s important to our partners, our guests, and our employees and we will continue to lead on this front.”
For more details or booking, please visit uniworld.com. Join Uniworld’s social media community at facebook.com/uniworldrivercruises, twitter.com/uniworldcruisesor instagram.com/Uniworldcruises using the hashtag #ExploreUniworld.
