Tom Stieghorst
A program to certify river cruise ships in Europe as environmentally responsible has grown exponentially in recent years.
The Green Award was first given out to a river cruise ship in 2020 when the AmaKristina became the inaugural recipient. Within a short time, Ama Waterways had qualified its entire fleet for the award, apart from two ships on Portugal's Douro River.
Five years later, the industry has 193 ships certified at either the bronze, silver or gold levels of compliance, according to a database kept by the Green Award foundation.
The Green Award is run by a coalition of ports, marine suppliers, service purveyors and other concerns with a commercial interest in clean rivers that has aligned itself with more formal green initiatives in Europe. It is an outgrowth of a program launched in 2011 for inland cargo shipping. River cruising was split off as its own category in 2023, because its ships have different operational requirements than cargo ships and barges, award administrators said.
The roster of certified ships is filled with European river lines, some obscure, most well known to North American advisors. In addition to Ama, it includes Viking, Avalon, Uniworld Boutique River Cruises, Scenic, Emerald, A-Rosa, Amadeus, Riviera Travel and CroisiEurope.
The award is an example of how industry self-regulation can work, either instead of or alongside government regulation, to modify business behavior.
It works by providing practical incentives to ship operators to have clean, up-to-date technology for controlling pollution. Many ports along European rivers provide discounts on port fees, typically 5% to 15% of the total levy.
Service providers and equipment companies also provide incentives, up to and including paying the cruise company's costs to participate in the Green Award program. Cruise ships are charged a certification fee of about $1,590 (or 1,539 euros), and ships are recertified every three years. Emficon, a Dutch maker of exhaust gas systems, will for example rebate 100% of the cost of the first Green Award certification fee for any ship buying one of its systems. It also offers a 20% reduction on its service contract.
Ships are evaluated on a thorough checklist of items, mostly related to engine emission reductions. A ship that runs on diesel fuel that meets the European Union's Stage V requirements could potentially reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 100%, its nitrous oxide emissions by 82% and its particulate matter pollution by 97%.
That would earn it 400 points in the Green Award grading scheme, a minimum to earn a gold level certificate. Lesser degrees of emission control are given silver or bronze awards. There are a bevy of additional certification factors that can boost scores, covering everything from safety procedures to labor conditions.
A platinum level award would go to any ship that sails completely without emissions, such as a ship powered exclusively by electric batteries, although no ship has yet been submitted in that category for certification.
One of the biggest incentives to be certified is access to prime center-city docking space in Amsterdam, the departure point for many European river cruises. "If you don't have the Green Award, you can only go to the industrial ports, and you're outside of the center," said Jasmijn van Loon, vice president of sales and marketing for Amsterdam-based Van Loon Cruises, which started sailing on the Rhine and Moselle rivers in 2024.
The line's first ship, the Gentleman, is one of only 15 ships boasting gold level certification. Other cruise lines with at least one gold-certified ship include A-Rosa, Amadeus, Avalon, Phoenix Reisen, Swiss Excellence River Cruises, Koln-Dusseldorfer Cruises, Thurgau Travel and Viva Cruises.