Environmental and operational sustainability of airports: Core indicators and stakeholder communication

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to propose and assess a core set of environmental and operational sustainability indicators for airport benchmarking, based on research conducted for a decision support tool designed to support airport environmental and operational sustainability. Seeks to make recommendations on the external use of sustainability indicators in stakeholder communication, based on a separate survey of the way in which UK airports use environmental and sustainability benchmarking reports.

Design/methodology/approach

The indicators are designed to minimise additional data collection demands while reflecting sustainability theory to a practicable extent.

Findings

Bringing core environmental and operational indicators together helps to make their inter‐relationship explicit. The indicators are a minimum set, and their limitations with respect to sustainability are made explicit.

Originality/value

Reports on a survey of the current extent of, and approaches to, stakeholder communication undertaken by airports in the UK, particularly external use of environmental and sustainability benchmarking results.

Citation

Upham, P.J. and Mills, J.N. (2005), "Environmental and operational sustainability of airports: Core indicators and stakeholder communication", Benchmarking: An International Journal, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 166-179. https://doi.org/10.1108/14635770510593103