Sustainable Airports: From Carbon Strategy to Operational Action

PROAVIA members help airports measure their environmental impact, reduce emissions, improve energy performance, preserve biodiversity and integrate sustainability into infrastructure and operations.

Airport sustainability requires coordinated action across buildings, energy, ground operations, equipment, air quality, biodiversity, waste and long-term investment. Airports need reliable data, practical technologies and implementation strategies that can operate within demanding safety and continuity constraints.

PROAVIA has promoted French sustainable-airport expertise for many years. Its first directory, French Technologies for Sustainable Airports, was published in 2017. A second edition produced with the French cleantech network PEXE in 2019 presented more than 100 companies, alongside conferences bringing together airports, civil aviation authorities, universities and technology providers.

Explore PROAVIA sustainable-airport use cases

INSTRUCTION ANAKRYS - NE PAS PUBLIER : Destination du lien : ancre #sustainability-use-cases de cette page. 

What are the main sustainability challenges for airports?

  • Building credible carbon-management plans across direct and indirect emissions
  • Reducing energy consumption while improving resilience and operational continuity
  • Measuring aircraft, APU and ground-operation emissions accurately
  • Designing climate-responsive terminals and infrastructure
  • Reducing the embodied and operational carbon of airport equipment
  • Extending asset life and developing reuse and circular-economy models
  • Managing air quality, noise, wildlife hazards and biodiversity
  • Turning environmental targets into funded, measurable projects

Sustainability expertise available through PROAVIA members

Carbon management and environmental strategy

PROAVIA members support carbon inventories, Airport Carbon Accreditation, Scope 3 mapping, decarbonisation roadmaps, environmental reporting, air-quality assessment and noise management.

Energy resilience and digital energy management

Members design and integrate microgrids, renewable-energy systems, battery storage, building-management platforms and operational supervision to reduce consumption and maintain continuity during power disruptions.

Sustainable architecture and resilient infrastructure

Architects and engineers develop climate-responsive terminals, low-energy buildings, resilient masterplans and infrastructure-modernisation strategies adapted to airport operations and local environmental conditions.

Emissions intelligence and operational change

Monitoring technologies measure APU and engine activity, attribute pollutants by flight and provide alerts and dashboards that help airports, airlines and handlers reduce unnecessary operating time.

Lifecycle assessment, biodiversity and circular economy

PROAVIA expertise covers lifecycle carbon assessment for baggage systems, airport-equipment reuse, asset-life extension, wildlife-risk management and biodiversity engineering.

Proven sustainable-airport use cases

Lyon: achieving Airport Carbon Accreditation Level 5

ENV-ISA helped Lyon-Saint Exupery Airport consolidate its carbon-management framework, map Scope 3 emissions, align its long-term strategy and prepare the technical documentation required for Level 5 validation. The catalogue reports a 90% reduction in controlled Scope 1 and 2 emissions.

Discover Lyon Airport's carbon-management project with ENV-ISA

INSTRUCTION ANAKRYS - NE PAS PUBLIER : Destination du lien : fiche use case Lyon 2025, puis profil ENV-ISA. Source catalogue : p. 40.

JFK New Terminal One: combining energy resilience and decarbonisation

Schneider Electric and AlphaStruxure integrated an 11.34 MW microgrid combining rooftop solar, fuel cells, battery storage and heat recovery. A cyber-secure digital platform manages microgrid performance. The catalogue reports continued operation during power disruption and a 38% immediate reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions compared with source energy.

Explore the JFK New Terminal One microgrid project

INSTRUCTION ANAKRYS - NE PAS PUBLIER : Destination du lien : fiche use case JFK, puis profil Schneider Electric. Source catalogue : p. 66.

Nice: measuring APU and engine emissions

WaltR tracks aircraft engine and APU operating time, attributes emissions by flight and provides real-time alerts and dashboards. The project supports lower local emissions, less noise, improved ground operations and greater use of fixed electrical power and pre-conditioned air where available.

Discover the Nice Airport emissions-monitoring project by WaltR

INSTRUCTION ANAKRYS - NE PAS PUBLIER : Destination du lien : fiche use case Nice 2025, puis profil WaltR. Source catalogue : p. 81.

Roland Garros Airport: climate-responsive architecture

AIA Life Designers applied an aerodynamically sculpted architectural approach to the new arrivals terminal at Roland Garros Airport. The documented objective was to provide a comfortable passenger environment without conventional air conditioning and reduce the terminal's operational carbon footprint.

Explore the Roland Garros sustainable-terminal project by AIA Life Designers

INSTRUCTION ANAKRYS - NE PAS PUBLIER : Destination du lien : fiche use case Roland Garros 2025, puis profil AIA Life Designers. Source catalogue : p. 7.

Reducing the lifecycle carbon of baggage systems

TG Concept developed a carbon-assessment approach for baggage handling systems. It collects project and operating data, calculates lifecycle impact and identifies lower-carbon variants that can be integrated into future designs and airport carbon-reduction programmes.

Discover TG Concept's low-carbon BHS assessment

INSTRUCTION ANAKRYS - NE PAS PUBLIER : Destination du lien : fiche use case FSC 2025, puis profil TG Concept. Source catalogue : p. 74.

A network built for implementation

PROAVIA connects airport operators with environmental consultants, architects, engineers, systems integrators, monitoring specialists and equipment providers. This multidisciplinary network helps move from environmental targets to measurable airport projects.

Find PROAVIA members for your sustainable-airport project

INSTRUCTION ANAKRYS - NE PAS PUBLIER : Destination du lien : annuaire filtre Sustainability, avec les tags carbon management, emissions monitoring, energy management, sustainable architecture, biodiversity, circular economy et lifecycle assessment.

 

Frequently asked questions

What makes an airport sustainability project credible?

A credible project combines a documented baseline, defined operational scope, measurable objectives, implementation responsibility and transparent monitoring of results.

How does PROAVIA support sustainable airports?

PROAVIA identifies and promotes member expertise, facilitates dialogue with airport stakeholders and disseminates practical solutions and project results through directories, conferences, use cases and collaborative initiatives such as OLGA. 

aircraft in the sky

PROAVIA and the OLGA hOListic Green Airport project

OLGA is a European Horizon 2020 project coordinated by Groupe ADP. Paris Charles de Gaulle acts as the leading demonstration airport, with Milan Malpensa, Zagreb and Cluj supporting replication. The project addresses lower-emission ground operations, energy efficiency, sustainable aviation fuels, biodiversity, air quality, waste and low-carbon mobility.

Within the OLGA ecosystem, PROAVIA contributes to the dissemination of solutions and dialogue with the airport community. PROAVIA notably organised a technical seminar on behalf of OLGA partners at the French Civil Aviation Authority headquarters, bringing together experts around hydrogen, airport connectivity and reduced APU use.

The 2026 PROAVIA catalogue highlights OLGA innovations at Paris Charles de Gaulle, including smart lighting, energy-efficient passenger bridges, solar power, equipment reuse, GSE electrification, APU substitution, sustainable aviation fuel, reduced taxiing time, air-quality studies and biodiversity initiatives.

Discover the OLGA project and its airport innovations

INSTRUCTION ANAKRYS - NE PAS PUBLIER : Destination du lien : site officiel externe du projet OLGA, idealement ouvert dans un nouvel onglet. Source catalogue : p. 1 et site officiel OLGA.

Read about PROAVIA's OLGA technical seminar

INSTRUCTION ANAKRYS - NE PAS PUBLIER : Destination du lien : actualite PROAVIA consacree au seminaire technique OLGA du 23 juin 2023.