Managing our Impacts
Environmental impacts are at the heart of our business planning processes. Climate change is a major challenge and it demands an entirely new approach to the way that we do business over the next 30 years. We know that our future development depends on the approach we take in dealing with the effects of our airports' operations.
The environmental impacts arising from the complex operations of our airports are many and various. While the majority result from our partners' activities, we take responsibility for working with our partners to reduce impacts across our sites.
We recognise that reducing these impacts calls for collaboration between MAG and our partners. For example, recycling of waste from aircraft requires the airlines to segregate their waste and us to provide recycling facilities. Our approach is therefore to engage with our partners and encourage them to adopt environmentally sound practices. Where appropriate, this is backed up by environmental requirements in partners' licences with MAG. Similarly, environmental criteria are included in some of our procurement contracts. For example, when Manchester Airport purchased new buses, models with small engines were specified.
Our airport Master Plans set out detailed commitments and policies to manage and contain our environmental impacts. At Manchester and Bournemouth, these are backed up by wide-ranging, legally binding agreements made with the local planning authorities. These agreements, which have become models of best practice, set out specific requirements for us to limit, mitigate and compensate for our impacts. For example, at Manchester we are required to maintain over 350 hectares of the airport site as an area of protected wildlife habitat. We report annually on how we have met these requirements; you can download these reports for Manchester and Bournemouth.
Overall responsibility for environmental issues across MAG is held by Penny Coates, Managing Director, Regional Airports Division. All our airports have formal systems for managing their environmental impacts. In 2002, East Midlands was the first UK airport to achieve accreditation to the international standard, ISO 14001, for its environmental management system, and it continues to be accredited today.
These systems include policies on individual environmental impacts, procedures for monitoring performance and responding to incidents, regular audits and clear targets. It would not be sustainable for our environmental impacts to grow at the rate that aviation is predicted to grow over the coming years, so wherever possible we have based our targets on absolute impacts, rather than relative measures.
It is vital that environmental management is a standard part of the way we do business, so we are also integrating environmental considerations into our normal business procedures. As an example, environmental assessments were undertaken as a routine part of our development plans for Bournemouth Airport. For more information, see Sustainable Buildings.
1st
East Midlands was the first UK airport to achieve ISO 14001 accreditation for its environmental management system