Heathrow recognized as an industry sustainability leader

LONDON, England – Heathrow’s leading investments in energy efficiency have earned it the “Energy Management” title at this year’s Edie’s Sustainability Leaders Awards.

LONDON, England – Heathrow’s leading investments in energy efficiency have earned it the “Energy Management” title at this year’s Edie’s Sustainability Leaders Awards.

Over £20 million has been invested by the airport to increase the energy efficiency of our infrastructure. This included a huge two-year programme to replace over 67,000 lights across the airport with LED lamps, saving 44GW hours of electricity, and £6.4 million in electricity and maintenance over the life of the light bulbs.

The Energy Management Award recognised the success of the Heathrow Energy Centre – a 10MW biomass Combined Heat and Power Plant providing zero carbon electricity, heat and cooling for the new Terminal 2, the world’s first BREEAM certified airport terminal. The biomass boiler is fuelled by woodchip coming from forestry that is 75% sourced from within a 50 mile radius of the airport.

The award comes as the airport celebrates the five year anniversary of the Heathrow Sustainability Partnership (HSP). Led by a CEO board from the 13 biggest companies at the airport, HSP works collaboratively to achieve long term sustainability improvements on a scale that wouldn’t otherwise be possible. Last year, it launched the Energy Code of Practice to monitor and target improvements in energy consumption. HSP is now in the process of developing a sustainability guide for restaurants at the airport in partnership with the Sustainable Restaurant Association, which will support them to reduce energy even further.

Elizabeth Hegarty, Head of Sustainability & Environment at Heathrow Airport said:

“Finding ways to use energy responsibly and efficiently is how we do business as Britain’s busiest airport and we are honoured that our efforts have been recognised by Edie’s Sustainability Leaders Awards.

Our investments in low carbon energy supply and management have created a win-win situation – we have not only delivered results for the environment, but also cost savings for our partners who operate at the airport.

We know we have much more to do, but we are committed and will capitalise on the potential that Heathrow’s expansion could bring to ensure we have industry-leading, low carbon, energy-efficient infrastructure in our airport.”

Earlier this week, Heathrow was awarded a Bronze award in the Mayor of London’s Business Energy Challenge (BEC) in recognition of the 16.5 per cent reduction in carbon intensity Heathrow has achieved a portfolio of its properties. Going forward, Heathrow has a plan to reduce its CO2 carbon emissions from energy used in buildings by 34% from 1990 baseline by 2020.

In addition to these awards, Heathrow Airport has also recently won other awards in recognition of efforts to become more sustainable. They include: a “GreenFleet” award in recognition of efforts to build a more sustainable airport fleet, the ACI’s Eco-Innovation Award for overall efforts at finding new, sustainable ways to operate, and for the eighth time a Biodiversity Benchmark Award for habitat management.

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Linda Hohnholz

Editor in chief for eTurboNews based in the eTN HQ.

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