OREANDA-NEWS. Heathrow wins four sustainability awards at International Green Apple Awards

Heathrow has won four categories at the International Green Apple Awards for Environmental Best Practice and Sustainable Development. Heathrow's combined achievements in this field were recognised by the judges and resulted in the UK's hub airport being crowned 'Champion of Champions'.

Run by The Green Organisation, the awards are recognised internationally for identifying and promoting best practice in the field of sustainability. Heathrow was awarded Gold for its innovative 'Pods', carbon reduction, renewable energy and sustainable transport.

The awards reflect Heathrow's continued commitment to enhancing the local, regional and national economic and social benefits of the airport. The UK's hub works with more than 320 businesses to establish innovative solutions and operating procedures needed to improve performance.

Matt Gorman, Heathrow's Sustainability Director said;

“We are committed to running Heathrow responsibly and delighted to have been recognised for our achievements so far. We will continue to work closely with stakeholders, employees and passengers to continue to improve and build on this success.”

The awards recognise Heathrow's work in the following four areas:

Heathrow Pods

The Pods are an innovative transport system and the first new example of transit technology in 100 years. The 21, low energy, driverless vehicles carry up to four passengers and their luggage from the business car park to Terminal 5. Heathrow Pods produce no emissions on site and provide a 50% reduction in carbon emissions over buses and 70% over cars. The Pods also eliminate 50,000 bus journeys on the roads around Heathrow each year. Since they launched two years ago, the pods have operated 1 million driverless miles.

Carbon Reduction

Heathrow has implemented a variety of measures and invested in Energy Demand Management (EDM) projects over the past four years to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions. Innovations include introducing new technologies such as LED lighting which are shifting the approach to long term sustainability. Heathrow also works with the UK aviation industry through Sustainable Aviation to influence the development and implementation of a Departures Code of Practice to reduce carbon emissions on the ground.

Heathrow's Energy Centre

The Heathrow Energy Centre was designed to provide wider airport low carbon energy benefits. The ?34m facility will provide renewable heat and power to serve new and existing airport infrastructure and represents the integration of the latest biomass-fuelled Combined Heat and Power technology into the day-to-day operation of a major passenger transport hub. At full load, the Heathrow Energy Centre will offset around 40,000MWh/year of gas and 12,000MWh/year of electricity, saving around 13,000 tonnes of CO2/year, around 5% of Heathrow's current annual carbon emissions. That's equivalent to the annual emissions of 6,500 passenger cars.

Sustainable travel

The Heathrow Commuter team aims to deliver behavioural change on a large scale in a complex environment. Their aim is to ensure that no more than 65% of Heathrow staff commutes daily in a single-occupied car by the end of 2013.

This is achieved through building relationships with stakeholders such as the airlines, local authorities and bus & rail operators to develop and deliver a suite of sustainable travel options. As a result, Heathrow operates the:

only airport cycle hub in the UK

largest car share scheme in the world

only free travel zone in the UK

A 2011 staff survey has shown that currently the transport mode share target for 2012 is 59.1% exceeding the original target by 5%.