The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has announced the development of a tool to help airports calculate their embodied carbon.
IATA has been working with Atkins, a member of the SNC-Lavalin Group, to create a suite of digital tools for airports to estimate the embodied carbon associated with the construction of terminal buildings and aviation assets.
Embodied carbon is the total CO2 emitted when producing materials, which means when a new airport or terminal building is built, or if there are any extensive refurbishments to an existing airport, the carbon footprint of that work has to be taken into account. Embodied carbon also includes the energy used to transport building materials, as well as the emissions from the manufacturing process of those materials.
IATA's new tools will deliver embodied carbon benchmarking for the three key airport asset types of terminal buildings, runways and multi-storey car parks. This will then help airport development teams to understand the carbon footprint of development work and enter into dialogue with airport operators about how to mitigate it.
The tool is ready
for use and will be selectively applied to IATA airport projects over
the coming months as part of IATA's infrastructure development work with
airports and IATA’s airline membership. It will be offered to airports on a voluntary basis and it is then up to
airports how they use the data to inform their stakeholders.
Data from the tools would be helpful to TMCs, corporates and buyers to understand any ESG implications.
IATA, which represents some 300 airlines comprising 83 per cent of
global air traffic, worked with Atkins’ embodied carbon advisory team to
develop the tools, thought to be the first of their kind for early-stage embodied carbon assessment tools specifically focussed on airport terminal buildings.
While most current tools measure carbon in general buildings, and at a later stage in the design, this is specific to aviation and can be applied at a very early stage in the design.
Nick Careen, IATA senior vice president operations, safety and security said: “Decarbonising aviation is the industry’s greatest challenge, and the industry is fully committed and making progress. However, reaching net zero by 2050 will require collective efforts from the entire industry supply chain and from policymakers."
Careen added: "Our collaboration with Atkins on this innovative digital toolkit will help airports meet their own objectives by providing a crucial platform to evaluate and reduce carbon impacts for new airport developments. By facilitating dialogue around carbon mitigation from day one of an airport development project, together we are making headway towards net zero aviation."
Andy Yates, technical director aviation infrastructure for Atkins, said: “These tools allow clients to confidently explore the vital conversations around embodied carbon reduction as airports respond to the complex challenges that surround the sector’s net zero goals. The tools have been developed by a multidisciplinary team including architecture, airport planning, and structural design as well as carbon experts, ensuring a solution that understands the complexity and multi-faceted approach needed to assess embodied carbon”.
In a drive to decarbonise aviation and keep carbon reporting transparent, travel technology firm Sabre announced in June it would be adding sustainability data on flight searches carried out through its point-of-sale tools.