Air pollution at Stansted Airport comes from a wide variety of sources. The most significant are:

• Aircraft landing, taking off, taxiing and running engines on stand
• Airport heating / energy generation requirements
• Vehicles operating at the airport
• Construction and maintenance impacts
• Private vehicles bringing passengers to and from the airport
• Vehicles and operations close to the airport, eg road traffic on the M11 and A120 trunk roads.

These sources of emission generate two main pollutants, nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and fine particles (PM10) which occur when fuel is burnt in the engine. Consequently these are the two we seek to manage as a priority at Stansted.

While many of these sources of pollution are beyond our direct control, we recognise our responsibility to closely manage all impacts of the airport operation on local air quality.

Our approach
Our objective is to continue monitoring and, where applicable, implement improvements in managing on-airport air quality. This ensures we meet our responsibilities regarding the current European Commission’s Directive limits (96/62/EC) and UK government national air quality standards.

Our air quality management strategy is based on the following principles:

• Taking action to control emissions from activities for which we are directly responsible
• Influencing other airport users (eg airlines) to reduce their impact on local air quality
• Supporting the Stansted Airport Surface Access Strategy to help reduce the impacts from road traffic
• Monitoring and modelling impacts from airport activities on the surrounding area
• Keeping up to date with new technology developments and best practice operational solutions and implementing where appropriate
• To listen to and understand stakeholder concerns in order to share information which will help them better understand air quality levels at the airport and how we are managing issues.

More on... air quality

Our performance
Our plans