Environment
is the work done on the ground – where officials from Ireland to the Canadian heartland are showing just how innovative and environmentally friendly airports can be.
Not that the road to a green future is necessarily
easy. Between tricky new technology and high overheads, it takes courage and determination to go clean among the runways. All the same, the effort is absolutely worthwhile. Apart from achieving its fundamental aim – making aviation less concrete- grey and more forest-green – these projects provide immense value to both passengers and the airports themselves. And who knows – perhaps they even herald a world where nature can flourish between the asphalt, even as eco-friendly aircraft take off around them?
Scary on the prairie
Between wildfires, droughts and animal extinctions, Alberta is the kind of place that, if you’re feeling pessimistic, can help you imagine the kind of climactic nightmare everyone will be living with eventually. That’s before even considering the region’s immensely polluting oil and gas industry, which – to quote a 2018 Science journal report – is the fourth dirtiest on earth, behind such luminaries as Algeria, Venezuela and Cameroon. And that’s doubly true when one examines the province’s capital. Set amid the wheat fields and cattle farms in the centre of the province, Edmonton was recently described as “one of the worst per-capita carbon emitters in Canada”. To put it another way, Alberta and Edmonton are not necessarily spots one would expected to uncover a green revolution. Yet, go to Edmonton International, down the Queen Elizabeth Highway south of the city, and that’s just what one would find. For about a decade, airport administrators have been promoting an avalanche of environmental tweaks, from revamping terminals with recycled materials to installing sustainable water systems. One of the most ambitious recent projects, meanwhile, is a new solar farm. Announced in 2020, it promises to be as large as 313 football pitches – and one day provide electricity for perhaps 28,000 homes. As Myron Keehn, vice- president of air service and business development at Edmonton International Airport (EIA) says, this is partly a matter of space. “We’re the largest major land mass airport in Canada, over 7,000 acres of land,” explains Keehn. “That’s small compared to Denver and Dallas, but still very large [for] Canada.” Listen to Keehn speak, however, and it becomes clear that Edmonton’s green push is down to more than simply real estate. He suggests it’s now more “socially required” for airports to show their environmental chops, and that’s even before you consider the increasingly stringent legal obligations. A good example of this trend is the Impact Assessment Act (IAA), recently passed by the federal
Future Airport /
www.futureairport.com
government in Ottawa. Among other things, it mandates that various environmental factors must now determine a project’s viability if it falls on federal land – including its impact on animals and plants. Nor is this a purely Canadian phenomenon. Across the Atlantic, Vincent Harrison paints a similar picture in Ireland. “Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time,” emphasises Harrison, managing director at Dublin Airport. “We recognise that the aviation industry has a significant role to play and that, while we have done a lot in this area, we must do more to reduce our impact on our surrounding environment.” And just like Keehn, meanwhile, Harrison also describes the pressures of new agreements and regulations on his airport’s environmental work. For instance, a deal with Sustainable Energy Association of Ireland (SEAI) committed it to a 33% energy efficiency improvement – a target it smashed.
Catch more flies with honey These commitments to environmentalism are great in theory. But how does one get a project as ambitious as Edmonton’s solar farm from the boardroom to the airfield? One piece of the puzzle, suggests Keehn, is partnership. The Canadians aren’t building the farm themselves, after all, but are instead partnering with Alpin Sun, a German renewable energy company. “We were chatting with different companies and were able to partner with Alpin Sun – after spending some time developing the relationship,” Keehn explains. Other partnerships are proving just as fruitful. Earlier this year, for instance, a Chinese solar LED manufacturer announced it was setting up shop at Airport City, EIA’s new commercial hub.
2.5% New York Times
8.2 million
Passengers that pass through Edmonton International Airport each year.
Edmonton International Airport
Global carbon emissions that are accounted for by the aviation industry.
“We recognise that the aviation industry has a significant role to play and that, while we have done a lot in this area, we must do more to reduce our impact on our surrounding environment.”
Vincent Harrison
Instinctively, this focus on outside support makes sense. When running an airport like Edmonton – which deals with 8.2 million passengers each year – bringing in experts to deal with the environment is probably the only way to get results. Certainly, Harrison and his team in Dublin have followed the same path. Working with the Electricity Supply Board, Ireland’s biggest energy supplier, it built 268 solar panels on top of the airport’s reservoir system. As Harrison notes, these panels provide over half of the reservoir’s annual energy requirements. “The reservoir project provided an opportunity for the business to gain corporate and technical knowledge
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