Viking Line's environmental work in the Annual Report » Viking Line and the environment 2011 PDF 590 KB » In addition to safety, Viking Line assumes responsibility for the environment. Viking Line endeavours to work for a cleaner environment by using the best available technology and by working according to the principle of sustainable growth. Compliance with current regulations and prevention of environmental damage are consistent themes of our environmental work. The desire to influence and work towards a cleaner environment is visible in our operations.

Det Norske Veritas Management System Certificate, PDF 326 kb »

In recent years, Viking Line has worked actively to adapt its environmental work to meet the standards established for our operations by the ISO 14001 environmental management system. Today the Head Office of Viking Line as well as all our vessels have ISO 14001 international certification. This certification presupposes that we comply with relevant legislation and other standards and continuously improve our environmental work.

Continuous environmental work

By means of internal and external environmental research, impact assessments and reporting systems, we have developed environmental practices that go well beyond the directives, rules and laws governing passenger services on the Baltic Sea. Our operations are also governed by the principle of caution and by voluntary preventive efforts in order to minimize environmental damage.
Our goal is to ensure that you, as our customer, are aware that Viking Line is an environmentally sound alternative when you select your mode of travel.

Environmental policy

Viking Line endeavours to provide seagoing passenger services in an environmentally sound way. By preventing pollution, training our employees on environmental matters and trying to engage our customers in our environmental work, our aim is to achieve continuous improvements and to reduce the environmental impact of our operations.

We run our operations in compliance with current environmental legislation and continuously implement preventive environmental improvements that will enable us to meet future legal standards as well. Today our environmental work is not only regulated by legislation but is controlled to an ever-growing extent by those with a stake in our operations.

In 1993 Viking Line’s organization and vessels were certified according to the International Safety Management Code (ISMC), which provides documentation to ensure that everyone in the organization carries out their agreed safety and environmental functions. ISMC certification presupposes that we accept responsibility for the environmental impact of our operations and comply with directives, rules and legislation.

The core of our environmental work is the environmentally sound management of residual products from our operations. Viking Line’s objective is to make our environmental work an integral part of the Company and a natural element of our day-to-day tasks. Another aim is to prevent the occurrence of pollution and thereby reduce the impact of our operations on the Baltic Sea. We achieve this by reducing discharges into the sea and emissions into the air as well as by optimizing our use of raw materials. We shall also increase recycling and re-use in order to reduce the quantity of wastes. We endeavour to minimize the environmental impact of our vessels by pumping ashore all wastewater from our vessels.

In planning new vessels, Viking Line lets the environment, fairways and service area determine their size and hull shape. This is why we do not build the largest vessels on the Baltic Sea.

In this way, Viking Line’s operations shall demonstrate our concern for the archipelagos and other marine environments through which our vessels sail.

Cleaner water

Two main types of wastewater are formed on our vessels: ”grey water” from showers and washbasins, ”black water” from flushing toilets. To achieve the highest possible degree of wastewater treatment, our vessels no longer perform on-board wastewater treatment. Instead, all wastewater, both grey and black, is pumped ashore and delivered to municipal treatment plants. This means that our operations will no longer add any ”seven-day phosphorus and biological oxygen demand” (BOD7) to the Baltic Sea.

Reduced air pollution

The energy efficiency of a vessel and of its engines, as well as the quality of the fuel it burns, are highly important in reducing air pollution. Our vessels use only low-sulphur fuel in order to reduce the emissions of air-polluting sulphur compounds (SOx).
The engines are also adjusted in such a way that the minimum possible quantity of nitrogen compounds (NOx) is emitted. On routes and in harbours where this is possible, our vessels use electricity from onshore sources while in port. Viking Line has participated in the development of an entirely new exhaust purification technology for large marine engines called the Humid Air Motor (HAM). Viking Line’s m/s Mariella is the first passenger vessel in the world to have HAM technology installed on all main engines. With the HAM method, emissions of Nox have been reduced by about 80-85 per cent.

As the Viking Line vessel Viking Cinderella begins service on the Stockholm – Mariehamn route, all its engines are equipped with catalytic cleansing systems for exhaust gases, which reduce nitrogen oxides (NO_x) by 97 per cent to 0,4 g/kWh. The Viking Cinderella also uses low-sulphur fuel to reduce emissions of sulphur compounds (SO_x). The total costs of environmentally adapting the vessel are estimated at SEK 19 M (more than USD 2 million).

The Viking Cinderella is able to use electricity from onshore sources while in Stockholm.
A catalytic cleansing system for exhaust gases has also been installed on ms Gabriella..

Solid waste management

The solid waste management systems that we are developing on Viking Line vessels are aimed primarily at preventing the creation of waste.

The goals of our waste management plan are to:
• re-use materials
• recycle the energy from wastes
• In the future, recycle the nutritional value of wastes.

Today solid wastes on our vessels are separated into the following categories:
• Mixed wastes (for partial energy recycling)
• Recyclable wastes (cardboard, paper, glass, metal, cooking oil, electronics)
• Problem wastes

All wastes are brought ashore to a certified receiving station, in compliance with the applicable regulations. All waste oil is brought ashore for recycling. The oil can be used as a supplementary fuel during cement production.

Chemicals

Ship owners have traditionally used mainly tin-based paints on the bottoms of their vessels in order to avoid biological fouling. In order to reduce environmental impact, Viking Line has stopped using these paints, and today its vessel hulls are brushed mechanically a few times per year.
The ozone-depleting gas halon, previously used in the fire extinguishing systems aboard Viking Line vessels, has been replaced by less harmful substances, such as hot foam. The coolants, especially CFCs (freons) in our on-board air conditioning units and refrigerators, have been replaced in accordance with the substitution principle in order to decrease their depleting effect on the stratospheric ozone layer and their contribution to the global
greenhouse effect. Coolants are successively being replaced by new and more environmentally friendly alternatives as they are developed.
During 1999, Viking Line conducted an audit of its use of additives and cleaning agents. Viking Line previously used 63 different agents - today it uses only a few, which are chosen according to the substitution principle.

Wave formation

To reduce the impact of swells from its vessels on erosion-sensitive shorelines, the underwater hulls of the latest generation of passenger ferries have been hydro-dynamically optimized, thus greatly reducing the size of their surface waves. Speed limits and fairway selection further protect sensitive archipelago environments.

Environmental reporting

In order to measure the environmental impact of its operations and to use its resources and technology properly, it is important for Viking Line to continuously monitor its environmental practices via a reporting system.
This system keeps track of energy consumption, fresh water consumption, consumption of chemical products, exhaust emissions, waste water, waste oil, bilge water, separated and unseparated waste, and problem waste.

Structure of environmental work

Viking Line’s environmental work is administered on the basis of the existing organizational plan, and in such a way that each person is responsible for the environmental tasks related to his or her own position. Our aim is to make environmental work a natural element of our day-to-day job.
Environmental work takes place through collaboration between each vessel’s environmental teams and the Viking Line head office as well as various stakeholders, in order to bring a genuinely holistic approach into our environmental efforts.

In 2000 Viking Line was awarded two different prizes for its environmental work. The environmentally friendly Humid Air Motor (HAM) method received the main prize in the Countering Marine Pollution category in the international Seatrade Awards 2000 competition. Viking Line also received the environmental prize of the Foundation for the Baltic Sea, which focused this year on the environmental commitment of passenger shipping companies.

In 2002, the environmental work of Viking Line was awarded the Maritime Forum 2002 Environmental Prize for the company’s role in reducing nitrogen oxide emissions from its vessels by using the Humid Air Motor (HAM) method.

On December 2 Viking Line, together with another shipping company, was awarded the Environmental Buoy Award of the Ports of Stockholm for 2002. The Group won this prize because for many years it "has run active and goal-oriented environmental programmes." Other reasons cited were the transition to low-sulphur fuel in the early 1990s and the installation of the HAM method, which substantially reduced the emissions of sulphur and nitric oxides. The award also recognized the building of systems for waste sorting at source, as well as closed sewage systems with on-shore pumping in the port to municipal wastewater processing plants.