HIA to tackle climate change and reduce carbon emissions by 2030
Hamad International Airport (HIA) recently celebrated its successful renewal of the Airports Council International (ACI) Airport Carbon Accreditation (ACA) programme by announcing a long-term commitment to tackle climate change and reduce carbon emissions. This includes a target to improve carbon efficiency by 30% by 2030 along with a series of initiatives to help save energy and optimize the consumption of vehicle fuel.
The ACI’s Airport Carbon Accreditation programme offers certification at four levels, which reflect incremental challenges in measuring, managing and improving carbon emissions. Currently at Level 1 ‘Mapping’, HIA has ambitious plans to progress to higher levels of accreditation and to demonstrate an approach to managing climate change that compares favorably with other world leading airports.
Central to this ambition is HIA’s commitment to deliver a new target to improve carbon efficiency per passenger by 30% by 2030 against a 2015 baseline. Through the preparation of a formal, independently verified, annual carbon footprint, HIA has already achieved a 4% improvement in carbon emissions per passenger in 2015 compared to 2014, with the ambition to reduce the 2015 baseline of 5.6 kilograms CO2 per passenger to fewer than 4.0 kilograms CO2 per passenger by 2030.
HIA recognizes that achieving its ambitious carbon target will depend on energy efficiency being built into the design of future airport development. Plans for a major extension of the airport terminal include consideration of certification to the silver level of the international green building scheme LEED, and will include over 11,000 m of photovoltaic cells forecast to generate up to 2,885 MWh energy per year.
Alongside enhancing the efficiency of the airport’s infrastructure, HIA is also looking at optimizing its utilization of vehicles. To drive continual improvement in the efficiency of over 2,000 vehicles operating airside, a new Airport Vehicle Programme has been established. This programme brings together businesses operating airport vehicles within the airport boundary, and is focused initially on developing systems to improve the measurement of vehicle fuel consumption and efficiency.
The Airport Vehicle Programme has plans to support airport businesses to further improve vehicle management, such as introducing on-board telematics to enable the tracking and analysis of vehicle use and driver behavior. The programme will also provide a valuable role in sharing the experiences of businesses that have already begun to introduce new technology, such as Qatar Aviation Services, who have a fleet of clean vehicles which will expand from 66 to 91 electric vehicles early in 2017.
