Making Airports Sustainable


Creating sustainable airports is one of the greatest issues facing airport management to this date. Airport managers need to look closely at their airports and examine how they could improve in the future. Much of these improvements look to reduce the impact on environmental issues, which are becoming extremely important. The FAA explains that working to create sustainable airports will allow for "reduce[d] environmental impacts" while still allowing for "economic growth" and becoming more involved within the community around the airport (Airport Sustainability, n.d.). Currently, the FAA is working to support airports to assist in making changes to become more sustainable. The FAA has given grants and provided guidance to 44 airports within the United States to help them put new sustainable measures into place. These airports range in size from smaller, general aviation airports to massive commercial airports such as SEA and DFW (Airport Sustainability, n.d.).

Environment

There are many areas that airports can look to improve on to become more sustainable. One of the major goals that are on the minds of many, both within and outside the world of aviation, is reaching the point of net-zero CO2 emissions. Of course, within the world of aviation, this is a difficult goal to reach. Emissions from aircraft in flight are a major issue. But working on airport sustainability can be a great place to start to make an impact on local environments. Airports can look to change to renewable energy methods, such as using solar or wind power, along with working to store excess energy gathered (Wood, n.d.). Also, considering emissions from other vehicles utilized by airport personnel can be considered as well, possibly working to shift towards more electric vehicles. More involved measures can be taken as well in regards to airport expansion or redesign. Working to create efficient taxiway paths to minimize taxiing time can contribute to reduced emissions by aircraft on the ground (Wood, n.d.).


References 

Airport sustainability. (n.d.). Federal Aviation Administration. https://www.faa.gov/airports/environmental/sustainability/ 

Wood, G. (n.d.). What makes a sustainable airport? Arup. https://www.arup.com/perspectives/what-makes-a-sustainable-airport 

Comments

  1. Quentin NemechekJanuary 5, 2022 at 4:03 PM

    This is a great post. The road to zero is going to be a long one, but not impossible.
    Nasa is already working with private companies to great electric commercial aircraft. Hopefully the technology moves forward in a smart way and helps make a cleaner world for us and our children. I know watching the earth react to the people staying home during the pandemic has opened a lot of eyes to the damage we are doing for sure.

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