Airports Environmental Management: Results from the Evaluation of European Airports Environmental Plans

Although airports contribute to region's economic development, they have a negative impact on the environment and on the communities around them. Environmental impacts such as noise, air and water pollution, and natural resources consumption are some of the implications resulting from the operation of airports that have the ability to constrain airports further development. In addition, increased public concern, regarding climate change, imposes more restrictions on carbon use and greenhouse gas emissions. As a result, many airports can no longer make full use of their capacity, especially when the mitigating cost is quite high. This paper is about airports environmental management and presents the results related to key components of the environmental plans that have been adopted in eight European regional airports. Key issue of the research is to investigate the differences and common practices in applied environmental strategies and systems. Even though most of the airports recognize the need to specify an environmental management strategy, not many regional airports have set specific targets about their environmental performance. Airports that serve more than five million passengers per year seem to have a more detailed environmental strategy; airports located in countries that do not have applied specific sustainable development strategies focus on facilitating growth, rather than taking measures to control their environmental disturbance.