Vinci Airports’ airports in Portugal have been awarded the Airport Carbon Accreditation (ACA) 4+ certification, the highest level of the Airports Council International (ACI) environmental assessment program.
This certification recognizes that airports have fully accounted and reported direct and indirect CO2 emissions related to their activities and operations, have significantly reduced their direct emissions, offset their residual direct emissions and started to reduce their indirect emissions. ACA 4+ also recognizes that airports have set carbon emission reduction targets consistent with a sub-2°C warming scenario under the Paris Agreement.
This performance is based on the deployment of Vinci Airports’ decarbonization plan by Portuguese airports, which have reduced their direct emissions by 35% since 2018. As a pillar of this action plan, Vinci Airports’ photovoltaic production program is currently being deployed at all Portuguese airports, with the first unit in operation at Faro Airport since 2022. Additionally, the company’s forest carbon sink program, aimed at sequestering residual emissions (scopes 1 and 2), has also been deployed near Faro, Porto Santo and Lisbon airports. The company also opened an electric vehicle charging station at Lisbon airport and launched commercial flights with sustainable biofuels (SAFs) at Lisbon, Porto and Azores airports.
Vinci Airports also announced that OMA’s Mexican airports, which joined its network in December 2022, have just received their first ACA level 1 accreditation. Belgrade Airport, which joined the program in 2022, has been awarded ACA level 2.
Nicolas Notebaert, CEO of Vinci Concessions and president of Vinci Airports, declared, “We are very proud that Portugal, where the economy is largely based on international exchanges, has become the first country in Europe to achieve ACA4+ for its entire airport system. I salute the remarkable commitment of our teams, in Portugal and throughout our network, who are acting as pioneers to deploy Vinci Airports’ environmental action plan.”
For more key sustainability updates from the passenger terminal industry, click here.