Organising for the future: three actions to becoming sustainable ready

While sustainability may prove difficult for airports, it is not entirely out of reach. Airport operators can take a couple of actions to step up their net-zero emissions campaign. These are some things that operators can do today for a more sustainable industry.

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Sign Renewable Power Purchase Agreements

Airports need to end their over-reliance on non-renewable sources of energy. Yes, there is currently no renewable energy for jet fuel, but there are other ways to reduce your overall carbon footprint.

Richard Palmer suggests signing renewable power purchase agreements to reduce the dependence on electricity and other non-clean fuel. Such renewable energy can come in handy when powering other airport operations. This may seem insignificant to some, but such small acts merge at the end to create a much more significant impact. The goal here is to get as many of your systems in renewable energy as possible.

Energy Operations Optimization

Savvy airport operators should know how much of their operations are energy efficient. Our industry expert, Richard Palmer, says that there are probably lots of fat in the system if you haven’t done anything to address your carbon/energy emissions.

If you have old systems in your airport, you may be running unnecessary operations that eat up your energy. Richard Palmer argues that airports should follow the example of property organizations that seek to minimize their energy consumption year after year.

This is possible through conducting regular energy audits, embracing energy performance contracting, and creating incentives for the whole organization to adopt sustainable practices. Other ways include having lighting controls, efficient air conditioning, microgrid types systems, and shared thermals systems. Adopting such practices opens you up to green financing that can help them improve their operations.

Good Resilience Planning

It is impossible to know what will adversely affect the aviation industry. That said, the best airport operators have great resilience planning that helps them when things turn for the worse.

A good resilience plan should outline what to expect, such as extreme weather patterns or storms. You can then get the primary and secondary impacts on buildings, land, and air transport. With this, you can build scenarios and even contingencies on climate issues that may affect your airport operations. You can also take advantage of emerging technology such as hydrogen fuel, batteries, and other synthetic fuels.