During this year’s COP28, which is taking place in Dubai, the latest and most ambitious level on the Airport Carbon Accreditation (ACA) scheme, which is supported by Airports Council International (ACI) Europe was announced.
Level 5 recognises the ultimate achievement and maturity of carbon management based on extensive carbon reduction in absolute terms with airports demonstrating an achievement of at least 90% CO2 reduciton of emissions under their control. They must also demonstrate investment in carbon renewal, the establishment of a carbon management plan, an extended carbon footprint to map all relevant upstream and downstream categories of Scope 3 emissions and the establishment of a stakeholder partnership plan.
Ten airports have already secured Level 5 accreditation, as part of the pilot programme that took place earlier in 2023. Many of these were regional hubs, including Eindhoven and Rotterdam-The Hague, as well as Schiphol in the Netherlands; Beja, Madeira, Ponta Delgada in Portugal and Toulon-Hyeres in France, all of which are operated by Vinci Airports; Christchurch Airport in New Zealand and Malmo as well as Goteborg Landvetter airports in Sweden which are both operated by Swedavia.
Commenting on the achievement, Nicolas Notebaert, CEO of Vinci Concesssions and President of Vinci Airports said: “I am proud of what Vinci Airports’ teams have achieved in France and in Portugal. This is just the beginning, because ‘Climate action can’t wait’, we are accelerating decarbonisation and making low carbon transition a priority to achieve net zero on our direct emissions by 2030 at our airports in the European Union and at London Gatwick and by 2050 for our network in the rest of the world.”
Meanwhile, Christchurch Airport Chief Executive, Justin Watson, said: “A dedicated team of people have gone above and beyond to get us here. it’s also like to acknowledge the assessors who independently verify our work, the ACA Asia Pacific team and those who have challenged us to lift the bar even higher.”
He was joined by the airport’s Sustainability Transition Leader, Claire Waghorn, who added: “This is a moon shot moment for our team. This is a challenging sector to abate and no one is under any illustion – we have a whole lot more work to do to decouple carbon from aviation and make the zero aviation dream a reality. We recognise however the critical role that aviation plays, especially for isolated nations, and therefore are committed to being part of the solution. That’s why 90% of the work we do now focuses on how we can help other businesses, including our airline partners decarbonise.”
