Portugal’s airport network achieves new carbon accreditation milestone
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VINCI Airports has achieved another sustainability first, with its Portuguese airports all being awarded ACA 4+ ‘Transition’ status in ACI’s Airport Carbon Accreditation programme.
The certification recognises that the airports have fully accounted and reported direct and indirect CO2 emissions related to their activities and operations, have significantly reduced their direct emissions, offset their residual direct emissions and started to reduce their indirect emissions.
ACA 4+ also recognises that airports have set carbon emission reduction targets consistent with a sub-2°C warming scenario under the Paris Agreement.
Portugal thus becomes the first country in the European Union to have its entire airport system (10 airports) ACA 4+2 certified.
VINCI Airports believes that “this unprecedented performance” is based on the deployment of its decarbonisation plan across Portugal’s airports, which have already reduced their direct emissions by 35% since 2018.
As a pillar of this action plan, VINCI Airports’ photovoltaic production programme is currently being deployed at all Portuguese airports, with the first unit already in activity at Faro airport since 2022.
VINCI Airports’ forest carbon sink programme, aimed at sequestering residual emissions (Scopes 1 and 2), has also been deployed near Faro, Porto Santo and Lisbon airports.
Among the Scope 3 actions implemented at Portugal’s airports in 2022 are the opening of Portugal’s largest electric vehicles charging station at Lisbon airport; first commercial flights with sustainable biofuels (SAFs) at Lisbon, Porto and Azores airports.
Nicolas Notebaert, CEO of VINCI Concessions and president of VINCI Airports, said “We are very proud that Portugal, where the economy is largely based on international exchanges, has become the first country in Europe to achieve ACA4+ for its entire airport system.
“I salute the remarkable commitment of our teams, in Portugal and throughout our network, who are acting as pioneers to deploy VINCI Airports’ environmental action plan”.