Oslo Airport awarded highest ACA accreditation

Oslo Airport has again been accredited at the highest level in the ACA programme.

Airport Carbon Accreditation, or ACA, is a voluntary carbon management certification programme for airports. Airports all over the world can now seek accreditation under this unique programme, the purpose of which is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Airports participating in the programme must prepare a greenhouse gas inventory that satisfies ISO14064 (Greenhouse Gas Accounting) requirements. Moreover, both the inventory and the application to ACA must be verified by a third party. DNV GL provides this service for Oslo Airport.

Oslo Airport has again been accredited, this time for 2015, at the highest level under the ACA programme, an accreditation the airport has held every year since 2009.

“Since opening in 1998, environmental protection has been an important part of Oslo Airport’s strategy. We are of course proud of this accreditation, which means that we are working diligently and in a targeted manner to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions,” says Ole Jørgen Holt Hanssen, director of security and safety management at Oslo Airport.

To qualify for participation in the programme, airports must map their own sources of greenhouse gases. This is level 1. The goal is then to reduce emissions. At level 2 the airport must demonstrate that it actually reduces greenhouse gas emissions from year to year. Level 3 includes mapping emissions from third parties (airlines and various service providers) at the airport and encouraging these parties to reduce their emissions.

The highest level of certification is referred to as 3+, "Neutrality". This signifies that the airport compensates for remaining emissions through carbon offsets. In 2014, Oslo Airport invested in a landfill project in Colombia. The project is UN-approved because it meets all the criteria for a so-called CDM project, or Clean Development Mechanism.

“Both we and the players at the airport are taking several steps to make sure that we can maintain this accreditation. Among other things, it involves the use of electric cars and hybrid vehicles on the airport grounds,” explains Holt Hanssen.

“Furthermore, our goal is to stop emitting greenhouse gases from our own operations by 2020. In our diligent efforts to achieve this goal, we established a comprehensive climate programme at Oslo Airport in 2014. The climate programme entails that we carefully review all the emission sources you find at an airport of this size, and look at all possible means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The climate programme will help us to identify initiatives that will enable us to reach our goal in 2020, while continuing to reduce emissions from both ground transport to and from the airport and from aviation. The climate programme will hopefully help us to continue achieving the ACA’s highest accreditation in coming years,” concludes Holt Hanssen.

ACA FACTS:
ACA is an aviation industry programme initiated by ACI (Airports Council International) Europe. The programme is represented by a tree logo, with the colour and size of the tree indicating the airport’s level of certification. At present, 125 airports have been accredited under the programme worldwide, and 66% of European air traffic goes through ACA-accredited airports.

The Avinor Group now has 5 ACA accredited airports: Trondheim and Oslo Airport are accredited at level 3+ (NEUTRALITY) while Bergen, Stavanger and Kristiansand are accredited at Level 2 (REDUCTION).

Read more about ACA here