by Sarah Kuta
Last updated: 12:15 PM ET, Wed June 11, 2025
Carnival Corporation & plc is celebrating a major sustainability milestone.
The company achieved a 44 percent reduction in unit food waste in 2024 compared to 2019, surpassing its 2025 40 percent reduction target a full year ahead of schedule. Carnival’s leaders are confident they will hit the 50 percent reduction goal they set for 2030.
The reductions stem from the company’s “Less Left Over” initiative to help reduce food waste. Since 2019, Carnival has been tweaking its provisioning, preparation and meal service practices, which has resulted in more than $250 million in savings.
The company has been approaching food waste from multiple angles, including using data and analytics to make ingredient purchasing decisions, training crew members to plate meals in ways that minimize waste, serving smaller portions and donating surplus ingredients to food banks.
When food is left over, the company tries to give it a second life, such as by transforming used coffee grounds into vegan soap products and converting used cooking oil into biofuel for its land-based tour bus operations in Alaska.
When leftovers cannot be repurposed, Carnival tries to minimize its impact on landfills. The company installed 630 biodigesters across its fleet by the end of last year, which use bacteria to break down uneaten food to a tiny fraction of its original volume. Carnival Corporation also uses more than 90 dehydrators and dryers to remove excess water from hard-to-break-down food items, such as fruit rinds, which helps reduce the hard waste volume by approximately 90 percent. The dried material can then be ground into a pulp for possible use as mulch and compost.
“Our Less Left Over strategy is powered by dozens of large and small programs and technologies across our cruise lines,” says Josh Weinstein, chief executive officer of Carnival Corporation & plc. “But more than that, it's also a global rallying cry that is turning everyday actions into lasting impact by nurturing a shared mindset among our 160,000 talented team members—a mindset that values creativity in delivering amazing meals for our guests and crew while getting the most out of our resources. It's great for the planet and our bottom line.”
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