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Working Towards a Net Zero Airport
To fully realise Hong Kong International Airport’s (HKIA) transition into a low-carbon and climate-resilient airport, we have continued to implement a wide range of initiatives to enhance HKIA’s sustainability performance in the first half of the year. Here are the updates on our key projects:
- HKIA Sustainability Leaders Group – Established in May, the Group is chaired by AAHK’s General Manager, Sustainability, and includes eight sustainability leaders from key aviation-related business partners (BPs). The Group provides a platform to discuss common challenges and solutions to achieve best-practice sustainability performance, develop ideas for new programmes and initiatives, monitor and report on progress for key environmental targets, and share information on the latest market trends. The group will meet biannually to discuss ways to raise the bar in sustainability at HKIA.
- HKIA Carbon Capacity Building Programme – To further enhance the skills and knowledge of our BPs in carbon management, a training session on carbon management plan, the second event of the Programme, was held online in May and co-organised by AAHK and the Business Environment Council. During the event, BPs were trained to understand key concepts on carbon accounting, reporting and data quality. A carbon management plan template was introduced to BPs to support future planning and tracking of carbon management initiatives. The bespoke training was attended by over 30 participants from 17 BPs.
- Green Airport Design & Construction – Earlier in April, the flight check of the Third Runway was completed, and with the renewed aerodrome licence, the Third Runway is planned to commence operation this year as scheduled. After the successful completion of the Interim Client and Design Award related sustainability assessment under the Civil Engineering Environmental Quality Assessment and Award Scheme in 2020 for the “Third Runway and Associated Works”, we are currently undertaking the assessment process for the Whole Team Award, to further recognise and highlight the collaborative efforts between AAHK and our consultants, contractors and sub-contractors.
- Energy Efficiency Initiatives – Our innovative Weather Forecast for Air-conditioning Control System (Weather FACTS) has won a number of local and regional awards, including Airports Council International (ACI) Green Airports Recognition 2022 Platinum award in the “over 50 million passengers per annum” category, CLP Smart Energy Award 2021 in the “Smart Technology (Corporate/ Government Bodies)” category, Association of Energy Engineers’s 2021 Regional Award – Energy Project of the Year and the International Facility Management Association (IFMA) Asia Pacific Innovation Award – First Runner Up. Another energy-saving project, the High Voltage Battery Energy Storage System (BESS), also received the Asia Pacific Innovation Award – Second Runner Up from the IFMA. Head to our “What’s happening” section where you can learn more details on Weather FACTS and BESS.
We are also proud to announce that AAHK has achieved a strong ESG rating of 74 out of 100 for its environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance from Standard & Poor Global Ratings (S&P). This score reflects what S&P describes as AAHK’s “good capabilities to address its moderate yet growing environmental and social exposure, and focus on maintaining its capacity to navigate potential disruptions”. HKIA is the first airport with its ESG rating publicised by S&P globally. The evaluation is also a testament to AAHK’s commitment and continuous efforts in enhancing the airport’s sustainability and resilience. S&P’s report on AAHK’s ESG rating is available here.
Peter Lee
General Manager, Sustainability
Airport Authority Hong Kong
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Cathay Pacific's Corporate Sustainable Aviation Fuel Programme
Last year, Cathay Pacific (CX) pledged to use Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) for 10% of its total fuel consumption by 2030, as part of its commitment to achieve their net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Supporting the pledge, CX has recently launched its pilot Corporate Sustainable Aviation Fuel Programme to facilitate the wider adoption of renewable energy by the airport transport industry.
Azim Norazmi, Climate Change & Sustainable Aviation Fuel Manager of CX, shares more details on SAF and its pilot Programme.
Q: What is SAF?
In short, SAF is a renewable alternative to conventional fossil jet fuel, which is produced from sustainable feedstock such as used cooking oil, agricultural residues and other wastes. SAF is one of the most important ways to decarbonise airline operations in the next few decades, especially for long-haul travel. Compared to conventional jet fuel, SAF has the potential to reduce lifecycle carbon emissions by up to 100% depending on the types of feedstock and production method used. In the short term, SAF is the most important means of drastically reducing carbon emissions for the hard-to-abate aviation industry and moving us towards our net-zero carbon by 2050 goal.
Q: What are the environmental benefits of using SAF?
Relative to fossil fuels, sustainably produced jet fuels result in a significant reduction in overall carbon emissions across its lifecycle. Furthermore, the production of SAF introduces significantly less sulphur and particulate matter into the environment than the production of fossil-based jet fuel.
Q: Tell us more about your Corporate SAF Programme.
The Corporate SAF Programme is part of our ongoing commitment to combat climate change, and is Asian’s first major programme of its kind. With financial support from eight launch customers in the pilot phase, we are scaling up the use of SAF and for the first time we can supply SAF to flights departing from our home base at HKIA.
Q: How does AAHK provide support on the uptake of SAF at HKIA?
As the launch partner of our Corporate SAF Programme, AAHK has made a financial contribution that helps us to absorb the premiums from using SAF, whereby the price of SAF today can go up to 3-8 times more expensive than conventional fossil fuel. In return, we allocated a verified emissions reduction certificate that helps AAHK reduce its Scope 3 carbon emissions from business travel.
AAHK also provides fuelling infrastructure that enables airlines to receive, store and uptake pre-blended SAF at HKIA. At the same time, we have also worked closely with AAHK to ensure all the necessary approvals from relevant Government departments, such as Fire Services Department, Civil Aviation Department and Hong Kong Customs & Excise Department, etc., are obtained in delivering and uplifting the SAF from HKIA. AAHK’s help was crucial in making this uplift a reality considering it was the first time that this exercise was ever conducted in HKIA.
Q: What is the significance of the pilot Programme?
Through the launch of the pilot Programme, together with the corporate customers, we hope to send an important demand signal to the SAF market to encourage the much needed investment and scale-up of its supply chain, especially in Asia.
Additionally, the uplift of SAF from HKIA for the first time will provide an important learning experience through the value chain for developing ongoing regular SAF supply from HKIA in the future.
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Updates on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the United Nations body that provides regular scientific assessments on climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation. Comprehensive scientific assessment reports are published every six to seven years, the latest full suite of documents, the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), was completed in 2014 and provided the main scientific input to the Paris Agreement. The IPCC is now in its sixth assessment cycle (AR6). The AR6 consists of contributions from three IPCC Working Groups and a Synthesis Report, which integrates the Working Group contributions and the Special Reports produced in the cycle into one report. Key contributions to AR6 are shown below:
- The Working Group I Report: released in August 2021, addresses the most updated physical science of climate change. For the first time, the report provides a detailed regional assessment of climate change and a new Interactive Atlas was developed for flexible spatial and temporal analyses of much of the observed and projected climate change information.
- The Working Group II Report: published in February 2022, examines the impacts, adaptation and vulnerabilities of socio-economic and natural systems to climate change. The report recognises the interdependence of climate, biodiversity and people and integrates natural, social and economic sciences more strongly than earlier assessments and provides extensive regional information to enable climate resilient development.
- The Working Group III Report: released in April 2022, provides an updated global assessment of climate change mitigation progress and pledges, and examines the sources of global emissions. It also explains developments in emission reduction and mitigation efforts, assessing the impacts of national climate pledges in relation to long-term emissions goals. Several new components were introduced in this report, including a new chapter on social aspects of mitigations, which explores the "demand side" – what drives consumption and greenhouse gas emissions; a cross-sector chapter on mitigation options that cut across sectors such as carbon dioxide removal techniques; and a new chapter on innovation, technology development and transfer, which describes how a well-established innovation system at a national level, guided by well-designed policies, can contribute to mitigation, adaptation and achieving the sustainable development goals, while avoiding undesired consequences.
- The concluding Synthesis Report, which will be the last of the AR6 reports, will be published in late 2022 or early 2023.
The IPCC reports reveal that extreme weather events will continue to become more frequent and disruptive. Corporate adaptation and resilience strategies are becoming critical for companies to build resilience over the short, medium and long term. It is also anticipated that there will be an accelerated pace of new and more stringent regulation on greenhouse gas emissions across jurisdictions. As such, companies are expected to orientate their climate ambition to the 1.5 °C target to align with the Paris Agreement and the latest climate science to curb carbon emissions this decade.
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Hong Kong’s First Gas & Electric Vehicle Charging Station at HKIA
Shell launched Hong Kong’s first service station that offers both electric vehicle (EV) charging and traditional fuels refilling services in June at the airport. The facility is located at the southern part of Airport Island, covering a site area of 5,000m2. It comes with four EV charging points, equipped with two types of connectors to cover over 90% of EVs in Hong Kong. Sharing the same target of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 as HKIA, Shell’s short-term goal in Hong Kong is to install over 300 charging points across Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the New Territories, providing EV drivers with a more convenient EV charging experience.
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Tradeport Installed Electric Charges
As part of its ongoing sustainability efforts, Tradeport Hong Kong has installed two electric vehicle chargers to encourage the use of electric vehicles among its staff. In doing so, Tradeport targets to reduce both greenhouse gas and air emissions from its fleet, also contributing to HKIA’s Net Zero Carbon Pledge.
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Weather Forecast for Air-conditioning Control System and Battery Energy Storage System
The award-winning Weather FACTS, which was jointly developed by AAHK, CLP Power Hong Kong and Hong Kong Observatory, is a predictive air-conditioning control system which optimises energy usage in terminal buildings based on real-time weather and passenger flow data. HKIA is the first airport to adopt this technology and it is estimated to save 1.7M kWh of electricity annually, which is approximately 4% of the total energy consumption of the chiller plant.
We also collaborated with CLP Power Hong Kong to develop the Hong Kong’s largest Battery Energy Storage System. Containing over 400 lithium batteries, the mobile system provides a maximum output of 4 megavolt-amperes and can efficiently store electricity produced during routine testing of HKIA’s backup generators for future use. In addition, BESS operates without fuel, which is more environmentally friendly than other existing backup generators.
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HAECO Embraces Diversity and Inclusion
To enable employees to thrive in an inclusive, open and trusting environment, Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company (HAECO) established a Diversity and Inclusion Steering Committee in 2021 together with a comprehensive roadmap to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace.
Putting commitments into action, the Ethnicity Network and Male Allies and Women’s Network, were formed, with quarterly activities organised to promote diversity and inclusion initiatives.
HAECO employees around the world have actively participated in past events such as the Male Allies Fireside Chat and Cultural Diversity Day. The latest Mentoring Programme organised by the HAECO Women’s Network has also generated an overwhelming response from employees. Learn more.
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We are eager to share and showcase environmental and sustainability practices. Please contact Tammy Fung and Iris Pang to discuss your ideas.
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