Airport Sustainability
Airports
Sustainable actions---
- Reduce environmental impacts.
- Help maintain high, stable levels of economic growth.
- Help achieve "social progress", a broad set of actions that ensure organizational goals are achieved in a way that's consistent with the needs and values of the local community.
Long-standing FAA programs such as the Noise Compatibility Program and Voluntary Airport Low Emissions (VALE) Program help airports achieve these goals. By fully integrating sustainability principles into airport planning, we are now taking sustainability a step further.
Sustainable Airport Planning
Our objective is to make sustainability a core objective in airport planning. We are providing airports across the United States with funding to develop comprehensive sustainability planning documents. These documents, called Sustainable Master Plans and Sustainable Management Plans, will include initiatives for reducing environmental impacts, achieving economic benefits, and increasing integration with local communities. To date, we have funded 25 airports across the United States.
Sustainable Master Plans and Management Plans
Sustainable Master Plans fully integrate sustainability into an airport's long-range planning. A Sustainable Management Plan is a stand-alone document. Both documents achieve similar objectives. They use baseline assessments of environmental resources and community outreach to identify sustainability objectives that will reduce environmental impacts, realize economic benefits, and improve community relations.
Participating Airports
We began our work in airport sustainability planning in 2010 by funding the first Sustainable Master Plan at Ithaca-Tompkins Regional Airport in Ithaca, New York, and the first Sustainable Management Plan at Northeast Florida Regional Airport in St. Augustine, Florida. Since then, another 10 airports were funded through our "Sustainable Master Plan Pilot Program." This program will be completed in 2013.
In addition to the airport-specific benefits of comprehensive sustainability plans, their lessons learned will also contribute to new FAA guidance on airport sustainability planning. That guidance is expected in 2013.
Thanks to the early encouraging result of the pilot, we funded an additional 13 airports in 2012.
Airports from most geographic regions of the United States are participating in our sustainability planning efforts. Airports of all sizes and activity levels are also represented. This includes some of the largest airports in the United States, General Aviation airports, and relievers.
Airport | State |
---|---|
Bert Mooney Airport, Butte | Montana |
General Aviation Airports, State of Colorado | Colorado |
Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport | Texas |
Denver International Airport | Colorado |
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International | Florida |
Fresno Yosemite International Airport | California |
Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport | Mississippi |
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport | Georgia |
Ithaca-Tompkins Regional Airport | New York |
James M. Cox Dayton International Airport | Ohio |
Logan International Airport | Massachusetts |
Monterey Airport | California |
Nashville International Airport | Tennessee |
Newark Liberty International Airport | New Jersey |
Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport | Virginia |
Newton City-County Airport | Kansas |
Northeast Florida Regional Airport | Florida |
Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport | Arkansas |
Outagamie County Regional Airport | Wisconsin |
Renton Municipal Airport | Washington |
Salt Lake City International Airport | Utah |
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport | Washington |
Tampa International Airport | Florida |
Teterboro Airport | New Jersey |
University Park Airport | Pennsylvania |
Program Guidance and Lessons Learned
In May 2010, we published interim guidance for the Sustainable Master Plan Pilot Program (see "Resources" below). We made the interim guidance purposefully broad to enable airports to develop diverse and innovative approaches to sustainability planning.
We are collecting lessons learned from participating airports and will publish summary reports. These reports will be posted in the "Resources" section below. We will also use the lessons learned to develop national guidance on airport sustainability.
Contact Us
Ask a question about Airport SustainabilityResources
- Interim Guidance for FAA's Sustainable Master Plan Pilot Program (PDF)
- Lessons Learned from the Sustainable Master Plan Pilot Program (PDF, 3.72 MB) (added 12/20/2012)
- Airport Cooperative Research Program Synthesis 10: Airport Sustainability Practices
- Sustainable Aviation Guidance Alliance's (SAGA's) Sustainability Database