Sustainability

Sustainability & Global Impact
With AmaWaterways
As we cruise along storied waterways and immerse ourselves in culture throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and South America, it is of utmost importance to us that we not only support the local communities, but that we also minimize our impact on the environment and the precious natural ecosystems we sail through. Here are a few of the ways we are accomplishing our mission of making a positive impact on the world.

At AmaWaterways, we celebrate Earth Day every day and are delighted to walk you through some of the sustainable features on board our award-winning AmaMagna as well as the environmentally measures we are taking fleetwide to reduce our carbon footprint.

Green Award Certification
In early 2020, our award-winning AmaKristina became the first river cruise ship in the industry to be honored with the prestigious Green Award* certification for industry-leading safety, quality and environmental performance. Soon after, 19 additional ships in our European fleet were also recognized. To earn this award, our river cruise ships were evaluated on the environmental impact of such things as our engines, fuel consumption, waste and maintenance, pollution prevention.

Environmentally-Friendly Ship Design
Our river cruise fleet has been thoughtfully designed with eco-friendly elements. These include energy-saving LED lights, special insulated windows that reduce energy needs for heating and cooling, power locks to plug into a port’s power supply instead of running generators, solar heating systems, water treatment plants that provide microfiltration and recycling of all water used on board. AmaMagna also has an innovative 10-engine configuration designed to reduce fuel consumption and solar panels have been installed on all stateroom balconies. In addition, the Zambezi Queen uses a water jet propulsion system that protects the Chobe riverbed, water-saving taps and showers, biodegradable detergents and soaps, and a five-stage water purification plant.

A Greener Onboard Experience
To reduce overall plastic consumption, we use paper straws (upon request), refillable glass water bottles in all staterooms, and hand out recyclable tetra-pak water containers for excursions across the fleet (where available). We have lessened unnecessary food waste from large-scale buffets by serving a la carte lunches on board our European fleet. For our personal audio devices used on excursions, we are proud to partner with Quietvox, which utilizes biodegradable rice paper bags and rechargeable batteries. In addition, our luggage tags and handy travel wallets are both made from recycled plastic bottle material and are now delivered to guest staterooms on board our ships in Europe, reducing our carbon footprint. The usage of our innovative myAmaCruise app and electronic travel documents has also significantly reduced paper consumption both pre-cruise and on board.

The Greenest Cities in the World
We are proud to partner with and visit many cities on our river cruise and land journeys that share our commitment to protecting the natural ecosystems we cruise through.