Gatwick gains triple award from Carbon Trust
Gatwick is now one of only a handful of organisations to simultaneously hold triple certification to the Carbon Trust Standard for achieving ongoing reductions in carbon emissions and water use, and improving waste management, the airport announced yesterday.
The Carbon Trust Standard is a world-renowned independent award recognising an organisation’s practical achievements in improving environmental sustainability. The Carbon Trust has awarded Gatwick three separate certifications for:
Reducing CO2 year-on-year: Gatwick achieved the highest percentage reduction in absolute CO2 emissions in the transportation sector during the two year certification period. In 2014-15, Gatwick cut absolute CO2 by 10%, and CO2 per passenger by 20%, compared to 2012-13.
Reducing water year-on-year: Gatwick achieved a significant reduction in water intensity in 2014-15, as well as ranking in the top 5% of UK organisations in a qualitative assessment of water management policies and practice. Gatwick has cut water use per passenger by 9.1% compared with 2012-13.
Improving waste management: Gatwick achieved a significant improvement in waste recycling, reuse and recovery, scoring in the top 15% of UK organisations in a qualitative assessment of waste management policies and practice. Gatwick increased recycling and reuse rates to 49 percent in 2015, up from 40% the previous year, at the same time as increasing energy recovered from waste from 40% to 47%.
Stewart Wingate, Gatwick CEO, said: “We are delighted to be one of only a handful of UK companies to achieve the Carbon Trust Standard across three categories of environmental sustainability, but for Gatwick this is just the start.
“Gatwick is already working up a road map detailing how we will become the UK’s leading low carbon airport by 2025. We are also examining all other aspects of our footprint – from water through to waste - and will soon announce more exciting plans to reduce our total environmental impact even further.
“These awards are deserved recognition for the whole Gatwick team for their hard work to deliver our ambitious sustainability goals. I would like to congratulate them for their efforts and have full confidence that together we will keep going to become one of the greenest airports in the world.”
Darran Messem, Managing Director, Certification at the Carbon Trust, said: “We would like to congratulate everyone at Gatwick who has played a part in securing these three certifications to the Carbon Trust Standard. These awards recognise real progress being made in reducing an organisation’s environmental impact, taking action on carbon emissions, water use and waste. Gatwick is a large airport and serving millions of passengers a year, which comes with a wide variety of sustainability challenges, so to be able to independently demonstrate continuous improvement year-on-year is no easy task.”
Gatwick aims to cut its operational carbon footprint in half by 2020 compared to 1990, and recently appointed a world-leading carbon expert to take this ambition further and ensure Gatwick becomes the UK’s leading low carbon airport by 2025 - the year a new runway could be open. Simon Sturgis - an expert in carbon emissions analysis - will publish a roadmap later in the year that will demonstrate how future construction at the airport, including its second runway plans, are fully sustainable and will generate the lowest carbon footprint possible.
Gatwick said it will also shortly announce a major new initiative on waste management at the airport.