This was the message from MSC Cruises sustainability director Linden Coppell, speaking at a press conference at the Chantiers de l’Atlantique in France, where the line’s 21st vessel, MSC World Europa, is currently under construction.

The vessel, which has been described by MSC as its "greenest and most efficient" ship yet, will be MSC’s first liquefied natural gas (LNG) powered ship and is set to come into service in December.

"If we don’t do anything going forward, our overall emissions will increase," Coppell said. "Every new ship means we are increasing the amount of fuel we burn. We need to decouple that growth from our emissions, and with various efforts across different departments we will make progress. we can make in different areas."

According to Coppell, as of next year, all ships will need to have their energy performance measured under a carbon intensity index (CII).

They will then receive an energy efficiency rating, from A-E, with C as a minimum requirement, A as the top end of the scale and E the bottom.

"If you’re down in D and E you’re going to have to demonstrate a programme on how you will improve over the next few years," Coppell added. "If you’re consistently getting E, over the course of multiple years, you won’t be able to operate that ship.

"We have to be extremely careful on how we operate our ships, as this increasingly stringent CII is going to continue to impact that."

MSC is also targeting a 40% reduction in its energy intensity by 2030 compared to 2008.

"By 2019 we were at about 28% of the way there," Coppell continued. "We think we’re going to see a pretty good jump in the last few years because we’ve out quite a lot of effort in energy intensity, so we are pretty confident we will meet that 40% target.

"In terms of the new fuels, no matter how hard we try and improve our energy efficiency, we need new fuels and new technologies in order to get us to that net-zero target.

"We are making a fundamental improvement using LNG and some of our subsequent ships, it’s much cleaner and much more efficient that traditional fuels."