Airport Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory: A Primer (2024)
Chapter: 8. Evaluate, Anticipate, and Improve
8. Evaluate, Anticipate, and Improve
GHG accounting and management often begins with preparing a base year GHG emissions inventory; however, like most sustainability efforts, effective performance requires ongoing management that includes evaluation, anticipation of (and preparation for) change, and continuous improvement.
8.1 Evaluate
As you prepare your first GHG emissions inventory, you may wish to consider the periodicity with which you will prepare future GHG emission inventories. Each airport’s circumstances will be different, and available resources may limit your ability to prepare annual inventories. However, those airports that do prepare annual GHG emission inventories will be better positioned to evaluate performance trends, identify changes in activities that affect emissions, and assess the effectiveness of GHG emission reduction activities.
8.2 Anticipate
Globally, the level of ambition to respond to climate change is growing. National and sub-national governments are increasingly eyeing regulation that requires corporations and other organizations to report on their progress to account for and reduce GHG emissions.
There are currently no national or state regulations in the U.S. requiring airport operators to prepare GHG inventories. However, airport operators can develop GHG inventories in anticipation of future regulations. By establishing a precedent for calculating annual GHG emissions, airport operators will be prepared to comply with regulations if and when they are required by regulations.
Airport operators should consistently monitor local, state, and federal requirements related to GHG accounting reporting and emission reductions to be prepared if any such regulations are enacted.
Although airport operators are not currently subject to GHG emissions disclosure regulations, they are subject to other environmental regulations, such as the federal Clean Air Act (CAA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
Under the CAA, federal actions, such as those taken by airport operators funded by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), cannot cause, worsen, or violate relevant air quality standards. Airport operators must ensure that air pollutant emissions resulting from actions related to airport emission sources such as APUs, GSEs, and ground access vehicles are within the acceptable limits designed in the CAA.
Under NEPA, any improvement or development at an airport using federal funds must include an environmental assessment to understand how environmental resources and concerns, such as air quality and noise pollution, will be impacted by the development.
The FAA published the Aviation Emissions and Air Quality Handbook to help the aviation sector comply with the requirements of the CAA and NEPA. In addition to these and other federal regulations, airport operators may be required to comply with state and local environmental regulations.
Because airport operators are already conscious of environmental regulations, procedures for complying with GHG emissions disclosures regulations can be incorporated into existing processes for complying with other environmental regulations.
8.3 Improve
There are numerous opportunities for continual improvement across the GHG management process, including annual efforts to improve the quality and completeness of inventory data, expanding the inventory to include additional emission sources (e.g., Scope 3), and, perhaps most importantly, incorporating new and increasingly effective measures to reduce GHG emissions into airport activities.
