Climate change

Climate change is a concern for all businesses. BAA is one of the UK's major energy users and air travel is a small but growing source of greenhouse gas emissions. It is our objective to reduce our CO2 emissions from energy use by 30% by 2020 compared to 1990 levels, despite passenger numbers growing by 130% during that time.

Airport climate impact
We are committed to playing an active part in reducing our impact on the climate and to leading the aviation industry in tackling this issue. To achieve this we are:

• Ensuring energy efficiency is built into the design of new facilities
• Investing in energy efficient technology
• Educating staff to reduce their energy consumption
• Sourcing more renewable energy
• Redesigning taxiways so that aircraft can taxi more directly to stands
• Reducing emissions from vehicles at our airports
• Making major investments in public transport services to and from our airports.

Aviation climate impact
The burning of fossil fuel in flight is the aviation industry's biggest impact on climate change. We know that unless a solution is found we will not be allowed to expand our airports in the way we'd like. We have therefore been lobbying for aviation to be brought into the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. This is one of the policies being introduced across Europe to tackle emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

We also work with the aviation industry to improve energy efficiency through technological and operational improvements.

For more information please see the global environment section of our corporate responsibility report.