New report outlines Edinburgh Airport’s sustainability plans

Becoming carbon neutral and looking to increase investment in renewable technologies are two of the improvements Edinburgh Airport has made as it publishes its annual report.

The airport’s sustainability report for 2021 comes a year after the launch of its Greater Good strategy and measures progress made against the four pillars contained within.

The past year has seen the airport:

• Becoming carbon neutral for Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions
• Beginning the process of switching airside vehicles fuel from diesel to hydro-treated vegetable oil
• Continuing to buy 100% of our electricity from renewable sources
• Progressing an 11-acre solar farm on the airfield
• Re-launching its community fund for 2022 with £100,000 available to local groups
• Achieving Level 3 status with the Airport Carbon Accreditation scheme, meaning analysis and reporting of all emissions data has been externally verified
• Launching a supplier’s sustainability pledge

The report also shows that the airport’s overall carbon footprint reduced by 48% but that was due to the Covid-19 pandemic resulting in a significant reduction in air traffic movements at the airport.

Airport chief executive, Gordon Dewar, said: “Sustainability is a key focus of the business as we need to ensure that the airport is future proofed by making our operations cleaner while continuing to make a positive contribution to the local and national economy, as well as our neighbouring communities.

“Our Greater Good strategy takes all of those things into account and this report demonstrates the improvements we’ve made and will continue to make in the years ahead thanks to decisions we are taking now.

“There’s still a lot of work to do but the challenge to meet our targets and play our part in wider targets is one we welcome.”

The airport notes that it introduced a new pledge to strengthen the whole campus approach to sustainability, including decarbonisation. Created to enable partnership working with the whole supply chain, it focuses on a range of sustainability related criteria, including decarbonisation, with Sasse the first signatory.

Sasse are the current provider of soft facilities services and are supporting the Greater Good strategy through things like the implementation of low energy equipment, the use of eco-friendly cleaning products, and the introduction of bio-degradable shrink wrap made from sugar cane.

Edinburgh Airport’s director of communications and sustainability, Gordon Robertson, said: “Our Greater Good strategy is about how we make the airport sustainable and a social and economic asset that delivers now and for the future, and a key strand in that is ensuring we work in tandem with all of the businesses and partners as we must all be working towards the same goal.

“The pledge invites partners to share their own sustainability approaches with us so we can factor in the great work going on all over the campus and really deliver at all levels.

“Sasse are the first partners to join us and we hope others will join and work with us for the Greater Good of Scotland.”