Sixty-four airports across the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East have collectively contributed to 162,623 tonnes of carbon reduction, according to the latest ACI Airport Carbon Accreditation (ACA) Annual Report 2021-2022.
ACI said in a statement that this CO2 reduction is equivalent to the CO2 emitted during the production of close to 24 million cotton t-shirts.
During the reporting period from May 2021 to May 2022, the accredited airports from ACI Asia-Pacific and the Middle East have achieved tremendous results in effective carbon management.
More volumes, fewer emissions
During this period, ACI noted that the 64 airports from 23 countries and territories in ACI Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, collectively handling more than 40% of the region's traffic, have been accredited under the Programme.
This represents a robust participation growth rate of 12% over the previous period.
It added that this momentum for airport climate action accelerated in spite of the challenges of COVID-19 recovery in the region at the time.
"There have been significant efforts to reduce the carbon footprint at airports, but the emissions levels will still increase due to a lack of clear solutions to decarbonise the industry and surging demand for air travel," said Stefano Baronci, director general of ACI Asia-Pacific.
Baronci noted that the ACA programme is a great tool to encourage and enable airports to implement best practices in carbon management and achieve emissions reductions.
"The coming years will be more challenging as Asia-Pacific and Middle East traffic is expected to collectively grow by 2.6 times until 2041 from 2019 level of 3.4 billion. Airports are already doing good work in decarbonisation but are expected to scale up their efforts to reach net zero goals by 2050," he added, as he enjoined more airports to participate in the ACA programme.
Airports in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East have also recorded progress in moving to more advanced levels of accreditation.
ACI said the 16 airports upgraded to a higher level within the reporting period are Bahrain International Airport, Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport, Christchurch International Airport, Hawke's Bay Airport, Indira Gandhi International Airport, Kansai International Airport, Kobe Airport, Osaka International Airport, Palmerston North Airport, Perth Airport, Phnom Penh International Airport, Salalah International Airport, Siem Reap International Airport, Sihanouk International Airport, Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport, and Queen Alia International Airport.