Airport Carbon Accreditation

Airport Carbon Accreditation is a system, which was developed for airports to determine their greenhouse gas emissions, to implement reduction measures up to carbon neutrality and to verify and eventually certify CO2 footprints and reduction measures. Although being applicable primarily in Europe, and with a large number of European airports having already achieved ACA certification, ACA has also gained international world-wide acknowledgment.

All ACA certifications base upon requirements of the Kyoto protocol on the determination (and the reduction) of greenhouse gas emissions. Three different emission groups are to be distinguished, according to their specific origins within the company:

Scope1 emissions: Emissions from on-site activities, on the amount of which the company has a direct influence. At Hamburg Airport these activities are the deployment of vehicles as well as the generation of energy (electricity, heat).
Scope 2 emissions: Typical Scope 2 emissions originate from on-site activities, but are generated somewhere else – emissions, which are generated in a power plant during the production of electricity being sold to Hamburg Airport by external suppliers.
Scope 3 emissions: those emissions are generated within the company’s perimeter, yet the company can normally not exert any influence on their magnitude. At the airport these are emissions from aircraft engines or from road bound access traffic.

To fulfill requirements of the protocol, amounts of emissions are to be captured completely and in a comprehensible and transparent way.

At every participating airport those requirements are implemented and eventually certified by using ACA at four different possible levels:

Level 1: Capture (calculation) of CO2 – footprint
Level 2: Reduction (calculation according to level and obligatory and effective reduction of the CO2 footprint with a „carbon management plan“)
Level 3: Consideration of scope 3 emissions in addition to fulfillments of requirements of preceding levels.
Level 3+: CO2 – neutrality

However, a thorough verification of all calculated CO2 footprints and of all reduction measures is the prerequisite for achieving certification. In a first step, this verification is carried out on-site by an independent and accredited environmental verifier. This is followed by another verification by the institutions that have developed and designed ACA.
These are the British environmental consultant WSP and a so called advisory board, which consists of competent persons from different universities and non-governmental organisations. A certificate is issued only after all verifications have given evidence, that the calculated CO2 footprints are correct and all additional requirements are answered.

Hamburg Airport and its subsidiaries have been holding an ACA certificate since January 2011, and to be more specific, a certificate according to level 2, which requires proven emissions reductions. This certification serves as evidence, that Hamburg Airport has calculated its greenhouse gas emissions thoroughly and in a correct way. It also demonstrates that the efforts of Hamburg Airport in climatic protection start to become effective.

As a whole, for Hamburg Airport the certificate, that has to be renewed and therefore to be verified each year, is an important component of the environmental management system, especially to give climatic protection the highest possible position.

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Airport Carbon Accreditation