SITA to help Hong Kong gateway achieve its carbon emissions goal

Hong Kong International Airport has selected SITA to provide a carbon management platform to monitor data on carbon emissions across the airport environment.

The move will help the airport track key performance indicators as the airport progresses towards its net zero carbon goal.

SITA’s carbon management platform, to be fully deployed by summer 2023, will collect and aggregate data on carbon emissions from a variety of sources within the airport.

It will span scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions and include data from 29 participating business partners across the airport value chain, overseeing services such as ground handling, aircraft maintenance, air cargo logistics, and catering.

In 2012, HKIA operator, Airport Authority Hong Kong, pledged to make the gateway the world’s greenest airport, reinforcing this goal in 2021 with the announcement of its 2050 Net Zero Carbon Pledge, a commitment to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Airport scope 1 and 2 emissions stem largely from fossil fuel energy consumed to operate the terminal building, vehicles, and equipment, while scope 3 emissions — indirect emissions originating from the airport’s value chain and business partners — are more difficult to track and represent a significant contributor to overall airport emissions.

In the case of HKIA, airport business partners account for more than 50% of airport-wide ground emissions.

HKIA has adopted an airport-wide approach for carbon management, working collaboratively with business partners to set carbon reduction targets and implement measures to accelerate airport-wide carbon reduction.

And while the already has an online emissions tracking system, it does not unify emissions data collected from the many sources active in the airport environment, requiring more time-consuming manual processes.

SITA’s solution, supported by leading net-zero technology partner Envision Digital, aggregates data streams from across the airport environment and participating business partners and consolidates these into a single customisable dashboard.

This, it says, allows the tracking of emissions data alongside key performance indicators towards HKIA’s Net Zero Carbon Pledge, the dashboard interface facilitates carbon performance tracking, providing the granularity to monitor individual emissions sources against specific targets.

AAHK’s general manager for sustainability, Peter Lee, said: “The development of this new carbon management system will provide comprehensive, accurate carbon emissions tracking against the long term target for both AAHK and each of our pledged business partners, and serves as a foundation for transparent reporting.

“We are pleased to have found a partner in SITA for this project, who have a firm understanding of the complexities of the airport environment and the ability to tailor their solution to suit our needs.”