Can airports be a catalyst for reducing aviation’s effect on the climate?

The aviation ecosystem is increasingly coming under pressure to decarbonise from the public and governments. Airports are at the leading edge of transforming their operations, alongside airlines and aerospace companies. While, however, the levers to reduce Scope 1 and 2 airport emissions are well understood, how to address Scope 3 emissions (which account for the bulk of an airport’s emissions) remains a major challenge. This paper provides an overview of potential Scope 3 decarbonisation levers across aircraft operations, ground transport and infrastructure construction. The paper then assesses the potential impact on emissions, and ease of implementation of these levers, highlighting aircraft operations as the area with highest potential to reduce ecosystem emissions. Next, the paper looks at how some of these levers have been implemented in practice, based on the case study of Geneva Airport, focusing on supporting sustainable mobility, energy support for aircraft and financial incentives for airlines to use latest-generation aircraft. The paper then identifies and discusses key barriers that must be overcome, including the ability of airports to influence domains outside their direct control, competing governmental policies and need for investment, highlighting the need for collaboration between a wide range of stakeholders. Based on this, the paper suggests a number of actions that airports should take to satisfy stakeholders and catalyse the aviation ecosystem towards its goal of achieving net zero.