Airport greenwash: the smiling face of the aviation industry

It seems it's actually rather easy being green: airports around the UK are improving their green credentials. Nottingham East Midlands is one of many airports incorporating wind power, adding four wind turbines which it claims will provide ten per cent of the airport’s electricity requirements. Liverpool Airport has installed two 15 meter high wind turbines. Sadly further use of wind power is only at the feasibility study stage as wind turbines can interfere with flightpaths and navigation systems.

Renewable energy is all well and good but in these cases it's just green garnishing. Aviation remains stubbornly dependent on oil and these green building initiatives do not tackle the airports’ core activity: flying. Elsewhere in the UK, Newcastle Airport is opposing the installation of seven wind turbines nearby on the Northumberland coast as this might necessitate the re-routing of flights. Plans for 85 wind turbines in Dumfries and Galloway and East Ayrshire in Scotland were rejected after opposition by Glasgow Prestwick Airport.

There are initiatives to use biofuels to meet airports’ energy requirements, even though there is widespread concern that greenhouse gas emissions can be higher than for fossil fuels, and that using land to grow crops for feeding vehicles competes with food supplies. Nevertheless, Bristol Airport’s programmes for using biomass from locally produced woodchip and conversion of used cooking oil into fuel for airport vehicles have made it all the way to the drawing board. There are no end of programmes to encourage staff and travellers to use public transport to and from the airport and Luton Airport is introducing some lightweight buses for transportation around the airfield.

Some airports then have the audacity to start educating and ‘raising awareness’ amongst the public on how we should be greening our lifestyles. Newquay Airport has announced in its development plan that there will be a Discovery Centre for children on the airports site, which will cover subjects including err… sustainable development. Some airports have allocated small pots of money for grants to cash strapped community projects. Robin Hood Airport near Doncaster gives tiny amounts of funding for community projects such as village halls and playing fields through its Community Investment Fund. Its website highlights such largesse as letting local groups use the airport chapel free of charge.

It's all under the banner of Corporate Social Responsibility, painting the airport as a concerned citizen with activities that are separate from, and detract attention from, their core business of waking up their neighbours with early morning take offs and landings. It just doesn't sound so nice when you put it like that though.