Maastricht Aachen Airport is actively committed to reducing its CO2 emissions. In recent years, the airport replaced lighting with LED lighting, started generating green energy and electrified part of the equipment, such as the generators (ground power units), a luggage belt and tractors for luggage carts.
Roel Ubaghs, Sustainability & Innovation manager: 'This accreditation is a great recognition of the first steps we have taken as an airport. But we're not there yet. For example, we will electrify more vehicles and appliances in the coming years, we will switch completely to green energy sources and we will reduce the consumption of natural gas to a minimum. The goal is to keep our emissions to an absolute minimum. We compensate for the remaining emissions, so that the bottom line result is zero (net zero). As an airport, we have drawn up a policy for this, including a plan on how we are actually going to realize this 'net-zero' ground operation.'
Bastiaan de Bruijne, ACI EUROPE General Counsel: My compliments to Maastricht Aachen Airport for their double achievement: participation in the Airport Carbon Accreditation program and immediately being accredited at the second level. The 'Reduction' level has everything to do with realizing real emission reductions from the direct control of the airport and testifies to a well-considered carbon management strategy of the airport. I look forward to witnessing Maastricht Aachen Airport's journey to zero-emission operations as part of this program.”
Airport Carbon Accreditation program
The Airport Carbon Accreditation program (ACA) independently assesses and recognizes the efforts of airports to reduce their CO2 emissions on the basis of six levels: Mapping (1), Reduction (2), Optimization (3), Neutrality (3+) , Transformation (4) and Transition (4+). These levels show how far airports are on their way to zero-emission operations. Airport Carbon Accreditation is the only airport-specific CO2 certification program worldwide and is based on internationally recognized methodologies.