Business Airport International
  • News
    • Accreditation
    • Aircraft
    • Airports
    • Charter
    • Construction
    • FBOs
    • Fuel
    • IT & Software
    • MRO
    • Partnerships
    • Passenger Experience
    • Sustainability
    • Technology
  • Features
  • Online Magazines
    • March / April 2025
    • Dec 2024 / Jan 2025
    • October 2024
    • July 2024
    • March / April 2024
    • Dec 2023 / Jan 2024
    • September / October 2023
    • Archive Issues
    • Subscribe Free!
  • Opinion
  • Videos
  • Supplier Spotlight
  • Surveys
  • Jobs
    • Browse Industry Jobs
    • Post a Job – It’s FREE!
    • Manage Jobs (Employers)
  • Events
LinkedIn YouTube X (Twitter)
LinkedIn YouTube
Subscribe to Magazine Subscribe to Email Newsletter Media Pack
Business Airport International
  • News
      • Accreditation
      • Aircraft
      • Airports
      • Charter
      • Construction
      • FBOs
      • Fuel
      • IT & Software
      • MRO
      • Partnerships
      • Passenger Experience
      • Sustainability
      • Technology
  • Features
  • Online Magazines
    1. March / April 2025
    2. Dec 2024 / Jan 2025
    3. October 2024
    4. July 2024
    5. March / April 2024
    6. Dec 2023 / Jan 2024
    7. September / October 2023
    8. July 2023
    9. Archive Issues
    10. Subscribe Free!
    Featured
    2nd April 2025

    In this Issue – March / April

    Online Magazines By Paige Smith
    Recent

    In this Issue – March / April

    2nd April 2025

    In this Issue – December / January 2025

    19th December 2024

    In this Issue – October 2024

    10th October 2024
  • Opinion
  • Videos
  • Suppliers
    • Supplier Spotlight
    • Press Releases
  • Surveys
  • Jobs
    • Browse Industry Jobs
    • Post a Job – It’s FREE!
    • Manage Jobs (Employers)
  • Events
LinkedIn YouTube
Business Airport International
Features

Staying sustainable at TAG Farnborough

Kirstie PickeringBy Kirstie Pickering5th November 20187 Mins Read
Share LinkedIn Twitter Facebook Email

TAG Farnborough became the first carbon neutral business airport in the world this year. Miles Thomas, environment manager at the airport, talks to BAI about how Farnborough is maintaining the status and the airport’s other sustainable efforts.

When did TAG Farnborough start working towards becoming carbon neutral?

We started process to become carbon neutral in 2008. The most important thing at the very beginning is to set your scope and understand what’s your responsibility and what falls into someone else’s responsibility. It’s really important with carbon calculating to make sure that there aren’t any areas where things can get double counted ie counted by two parties working side by side and therefore get counting twice or, probably worse than that, having a gap in between two parts of an operations/two companies because gaps or double counting upset the figures.

As an airport, our footprint includes our infrastructure, the buildings we operate, the equipment and facilities we provide and all the activities our staff undertake at the airport. Sitting outside of that, is aircraft operations, which is with operators. Know what your footprint encompasses and from that you can start to build towards learning what your baseline footprint is and then trying to reduce it.

What was the most challenging change that had to be implemented? 

To get anything moving like this from a company, you really need support from the very top. For us, our board of directors had to be interested and committed to wanting to do this because it is a strategic move for the airport. Every level of the company then needs to be striving for the same goal, such as the operational staff on the airfield. Everybody has their part to play and without everyone pulling in the same direction, you can’t get the maximum result which is what we were looking for.

It is a big challenge to make sure everyone understands what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, what the benefits are and how it helps the company. When you’re in the midst of the work, it might not always be apparent what the overall benefits are when there’s still a lot of work and investment to be done. We needed to demonstrate to our community and stakeholders that we are committed to achieving best environmental performance and carbon footprint is just one small area that contributes to that.

What else did you have to change or add to your operation in the quest to be carbon neutral?

We have a mix of new facilities built around 2004, and then older facilities that we inherited from the MOD airport from which TAG developed, such as hangars that were built in 1940s and 1950s. That meant there were a range of things to implement. Some were as simple as lagging the hot water pipes for heat loss reduction. There was a lack of insulation in the hangars so we implemented new technology called destratification fans, which hang in the roof of hangar and push hot air that rises back down to the bottom of the hangar. This reduces heat loss from the uninsulated parts of the roof of the building. This helps us operate what were essentially old and inefficient buildings to operate them much more efficiently.

On a bigger scale, we’ve been going through every single building on site and upgrading all the lighting both inside and outside. We got rid of halogen fluorescent lighting which is old and inefficient and produces a lot of wasted heat and replaced it with LED technology which is, although extremely expensive, can save up to 80% of electricity usage. We’ve also started work on the runway lighting. This has had a huge impact on our carbon footprint as it has significantly reduced our electricity usage on our site.

We knew we were going to work towards carbon neutrality over a long period of time, so we weren’t in a rush to reach it. We wanted to do it slowly, thoughtfully and properly. This meant looking at absolutely everything. Technology is always developing in ways that can help you meet those reduction targets, but you also have to look at how the staff operate on site, how they interact with technology you have, how third parties get to learn about how their activities impact the process.

You’ve got to have training programs and procedures and high-level policies that direct people in a way that helps them understand that sustainable performance is extremely important to us. You have to put all of that in a package and we looked at the breadth of our operation and ensured we could address every part of the operation from the large to small.

Why was it important to TAG Farnborough to become carbon neutral?

To be the first business airport is fabulous and we’re extremely proud of that. Lots of commercial airports have taken up carbon accreditation. Globally, we are the 39th airport to achieve neutrality and that puts us on a platform with large commercial airports. It’s great for us to be on that same platform as a relatively small business aviation airport. It sits with our company ethos to be the first. We tried to not just meet the regulations but go beyond them and demonstrate that our environmental performance is at the heart of our operation.

We’ve always tried to do what we say we are going to do. We released a 10-year masterplan in 2009 and within it, we set out where we thought the business was going to go and what our intentions and aspirations were going forward. A part of that masterplan, we had a sustainability charter that went through and listed key areas where we were going to try and drive sustainable improvements and business operations. This covered different areas that came under environmental management. In addition to carbon footprint, this included noise, air quality and waste management and all the other key things related to airport management.

What advice would you give to airports striving to become carbon neutral?

The communication, getting the company ethos on board and the organization of staff is really important at the start and that takes more time than simply investing in technology. Unless you’ve got everyone trying to achieve the same thing, it’s very hard to make the differences or get the greatest efficiency you’re looking for.

One of the big advantages we found was to run the carbon footprint reduction work alongside an Environment Management System (EMS). Our EMS is a structured way of dealing with environmental issues at the airport and that is a globally standardized process from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). As you work through developing the EMS, it gives you all the communications pathways and the organization from top management to operational staff and that gives you the network to be able to get the company working towards the right direction ready for carbon footprint reduction or any other scheme you’re hoping to run.

Before you do any kinds of improvement work, you need to be able to make sure you can monitor those changes. Getting your monitoring and data together to get that first baseline footprint is also really important, such as knowing how much electricity, gas, liquid fuel and other elements you use that contribute to the carbon footprint. Having robust monitoring schemes for those is important before you start making the changes otherwise you lose the benefit of understanding or quantifying those benefits that you’re realizing.

Share. Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Email
Previous ArticleGeneral aviation associations unveil recommended best business practices
Next Article Quick quiz: Marrakech handling
Kirstie Pickering

Kirstie worked full-time on Business Airport International for over two years and is now a freelance journalist. Away from her writing commitments, you will find her blogging on her lifestyle website or training for her next charity run.

Related Posts

Unpacking the challenges operators face in navigating tax rules
Features

A look at the complexities of business aviation taxation and regulatory compliance

13th May 20259 Mins Read
Features

A look at Malaysia’s emergence as a business aviation hub in the Asia Pacific region

2nd May 20258 Mins Read
Features

How IS-BAH IS transforming ground operations

29th April 20259 Mins Read
Latest Posts

EBACE 2025: David Buritica, Signature Aviation

22nd May 2025
BBGA is the first European national association to join the advocacy initiative

BBGA joins CLIMBING. FAST.

22nd May 2025
Jet Aviation has completed a full renovation of its FBO in Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Jet Aviation completes renovation of Rotterdam FBO

22nd May 2025
Partner Content
Johanna Echeto, general manager, LZU

Q&A: Johanna Echeto, general manager, Sheltair, Gwinnett County Airport

29th April 2025
Supplier Spotlights
Our Social Channels
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
Getting in Touch
  • Subscribe to Magazine
  • Meet the Writers
  • Contact Us
  • Media Pack
Related Topics
  • Aircraft Interiors
  • Air Traffic Technology
  • Aerospace Testing
  • Business Jet Interiors
FREE WEEKLY NEWS EMAIL!

Get the 'best of the week' from this website direct to your inbox every Tuesday


© 2023 Mark Allen Group Ltd | All Rights Reserved
  • Cookie Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.