The airports in the Aena network which are part of the Airport Carbon Accreditation (ACA) programme have taken another step forward in their commitment to achieving carbon neutrality by 2026 after renewing their ACA certification, a voluntary programme to evaluate and recognise the efforts made by airports to manage and reduce the CO2 emissions associated with their operations.
Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas and Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat airports have already been upgraded from Level 2 to Level 3 “Optimisation”, which entails having an emissions management and reduction programme in place while also engaging with third parties and assessing their emissions.
Likewise, César Manrique-Lanzarote, Málaga-Costa del Sol and Palma de Mallorca airports have renewed their Airport Carbon Accreditation Level 2 “Reduction” certification, while Alicante-Elche, Menorca and Santiago-Rosalía de Castro airports have renewed Level 1 “Mapping”.
As part of Aena’s strategy to address the challenge of the battle against climate change, the airports accredited in Levels 2 and 3 have put in place a Carbon Management Plan which consists of implementing a wide range of measures to cut their CO2 emissions by streamlining energy usage in buildings and infrastructures while minimising the use of fossil fuels.
The eight Aena airports which are accredited in this programme account for 70% of the network’s passengers.
Airport Carbon Accreditation is the world’s only institutionally supported carbon management certification programme for airports. It independently assesses and recognises airports which are at different points on their journey towards all-inclusive management of their CO2 emissions through six levels of certification: “Mapping”, “Reduction”, “Optimisation”, “Neutrality”, “Transformation” and “Transition”, the last two of which were recently added to align it with the commitments made in the Paris Agreement.
Carbon neutrality comes under the main strategic objective included in Aena’s Climate Action Plan 2021-2030 which features measures designed to mitigate the effects of climate change. These actions will enable Aena to attain carbon neutrality by 2026 while achieving a 94% reduction in emissions per passenger associated with Aena’s own operations by 2030 to lay the foundations for accomplishing Net Zero by 2040.
All of this is part of Aena’s commitment to tackling the climate emergency. The aviation sector needs to address this issue both with measures at airports and also by working in close partnership with airlines and companies in the industry to implement innovative solutions which will enable us to achieve more sustainable and carbon-free aviation.