The Airports Council International-North America recently launched Airport Carbon Accreditation at North American airports, bringing the program across the Atlantic five years after it was launched in Europe. Available in the Asia-Pacific region since 2011 and Africa since 2012, Airport Carbon Accreditation has recognized 107 airports in these regions — including 86 across 24 European countries. Only in the past year, the programme yielded a net reduction of 353,842 tons of CO2 in Europe under the collective efforts of European airports. Additionally, it was selected as of the top three low carbon initiatives for Europe and was highly commended at the OECD International Transport Forum’s Transport Achievement Awards. Currently, it is nominated for the ‘Best Aviation Programme for Carbon Reduction’ Prize at this year’s World Responsible Tourism Awards.
The programme assesses and certifies airports’ plans to manage and reduce their carbon impacts. Airports are certified on four different levels of accreditation: mapping, reduction, optimisation and neutrality. The first U.S. airport to be certified was Seattle-Tacoma International in Washington state. The success of the programme reflects the fact that carbon management is high on the transport industry agenda world-wide, but also that it is recognized as a gold standard that many airports wish to attain.
Watch the video below to learn more:
http://youtu.be/yJWDJx-aaFE