ACI Europe’s first ever sustainability summit took place in Brussels on January 22, 2020.
Held under the patronage of the Croatian Presidency of the Council of the European Union and István Ujhelyi MEP, the event brought together key stakeholders from the EU institutions and member states, Eurocontrol, airlines, Airbus, NGOs, community representatives and airports.
The Aviation Sustainability Summit focused on two main topics: the need to decarbonize aviation in line with the EU 2050 Climate Neutrality objective and ways to achieve more sustainable airports.
Opening the event, Jost Lammers, president of ACI Europe, said, “Our purpose with this high-level Summit is to bring together all stakeholders to play their part in responding to the climate emergency and aligning with the European Green Deal. The challenge we face in fully decarbonizing aviation is daunting, as we have no silver bullet to get there.
“But there is no escape; the aviation sector needs to complement its current CO2 reduction targets with a long-term ambition for Net Zero. As airports, we are thrilled to see some European airlines taking the lead to move in that direction – along with us.”
Lammers added, “We need to look at and work on every possible effective tool to get to Net Zero – from meaningful air traffic management reform, sustainable aviation fuels, R&D in new propulsion to CORSIA [the ICAO Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation] and the EU emissions trading system, as well as intermodality. The complexities involved require industry, NGOs and policymakers to cooperate more closely than ever, so that we can chart the way forward and deliver.”
In his keynote address, Ovais Sarmad, deputy executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), singled out the airport industry’s program: “I wish to applaud ACI’s Airport Carbon Accreditation program and the European airport industry’s Net Zero commitment. You provide an example of bold – necessary – action on climate change that is an example to the rest of the aviation industry, and in fact all industries”.
ACI will also send a delegate of speakers to present at Passenger Terminal CONFERENCE 2020. They will be covering topics such as: Sharing airport data – increasing the value of digital assets (Aneil Patel, vice president, air policy), to Removing security checkpoints in the future (Billy Shallow, manager, Smart Security), The arrival passengers: equally as important as the departing passengers (Sevda Fevzim manager, ASQ business development and customer care), and Employees and customers, the two sides of the same experience (Dimitri Coll, director ASQ customer experience). The full conference program can be found here.