Credit where credit is due

Look out aviation!  The signs are increasingly clear that aircraft, airports, terminal buildings and even passengers – the lifeblood of the industry – are showing up on the radar of opportunity for governments to fill their coffers from yet another milch cow on the flimsy pretext they are saving the world!

Want an example?  British MP Chris Huhne, environment spokesman for the Liberal Democrat party, recently declared that expansion of London Gatwick airport could lead to a surge in freak weather in the region. “We need to make it very clear that we are against airport expansion.  The future of the planet comes first.  We need to be thinking about the young people of today, who are going to be here in 40 years’ time when they will experience freak storms and floods."

Yes, as far as we understand it, aviation does contribute to an increase in the world’s average temperatures.  A rise that could make life difficult, to say the least, for our children and their children, if not for us.  But aviation must not allow itself to be elevated by governments, and other organisations, to the wholly unjustified position of the world’s worst polluter with the biggest carbon footprint and the poorest record on environmental change.  Because it’s not.

Aviation might get away with fuel that’s not taxed, but it has done – and continues to do with increasing diligence – many things to reduce consumption of fossil fuels, reduce carbon footprints and participate fully in good-neighbour activities on a world-wide basis.  However, unless aviation starts to shout much more – and much louder – about what it is doing, politicians, eco-warriors and those committed to opposing everything that isn’t aimed at returning us to a caveman lifestyle, will ensure the industry is stifled by a potent cocktail of taxes and regulations.

It must also act on initiatives.  Applauding their potential, and then doing nothing, is not good enough. Virgin’s Richard Branson recently advocated using tugs to position aircraft much closer to take-off runways before their engines were started.  It would, said Sir Richard, save fuel and reduce emissions (especially when delays were encountered), and help to clean up what can be an unnecessarily ‘dirty’ ground operation.  So are we doing it?  I see no evidence of aircraft getting more than the customary push-back from tugs before they uncouple and leave the aircraft to move on under their own (fuel-consuming, greater CO2-emitting) power.

However, airports, aircraft manufacturers and airlines around the world are routinely implementing innovative environmental schemes.  Within airports and terminal buildings, there are increasing numbers of such schemes such, including electricity monitoring systems, solar power for heating and lighting, recycled rainwater for flushing toilets and filling heating systems, and glass roofs to let in daylight (thus avoiding the need for electric lights).  Add to this the huge amount of ‘unseen’ R&D that engine and aircraft manufacturers are doing to reduce fuel consumption (and, therefore, emissions) and noise, and the combined efforts of the aviation industry to play its part start to stack up.

But we as an industry need to be making a bigger noise about our efforts. Governments need to get the full picture and be left in no doubt that aviation is not a soft target.  Yes, aviation needs to do more.  But it must not allow what it does to go unheeded.  It’s time, I believe, for an aviation industry equivalent to the Hollywood Oscars.  A scheme that (without too much of Tinseltown’s unnecessary hype) annually honours the most innovative environmental projects implemented by airports, operators, airlines, aircraft manufacturers and anyone else attached to the aviation industry.

The Bransons would be a tempting title, although it could be embarrassing if Virgin, or Sir Richard himself, won.  Dare I suggest The Fossetts?  Such an award would honour one of modern history’s great aviators and a man who understood so much about living with, and working with, the environment.

Until such an awards scheme is developed, why not nominate those airports that are doing most for the environment in the Passenger Terminal World poll of most significant airports? To make a nomination, click here.

Hello,

I am with Airports Council International, and are also part of the core group working on the www.enviro.aero initiative with IATA, Boeing, Airbus, ATAG, AEA and a number of our members.
 
I read your column on the environmental debate with interest. ACI has, over the past few months, started gathering examples of 'green' projects at airports and have posted them on our website.
 
We have also, through the enviro.aero initiative, started doing a lot more to publicise the real facts about aviation's environmental record - and are about to get a lot more proactive on this.

ACI Case Studies, ACI Position Briefs and a Tracker File of environmental initiatives are available on the ACI website www.aci.aero - the environment link is on the front page.

Haldane Dodd
Manager, Communications
ACI World Headquarters, Geneva

Haldane Dodd