A comparison of sustainability theory with UK and European airports policyand practice

There are three main theoretical difficulties involved in relating sustaina bility to aviation, and which a research agenda for sustainable aviation ne eds to address. The first is uncertainty regarding the critical thresholds of global environmental systems. The second is a lack of protocols for allo cating permissible environmental consumption shares to, and hence targets f or, individual enterprises or sectors. The third is differing value judgeme nts of what natural features should be sustained. For the time being, these difficulties preclude determination of the degree of sustainability or uns ustainability of any individual airport with respect to global environmenta l systems. Nevertheless, at this stage it can at least be said that since m ost economic activity has an adverse environmental impact, airports with hi gher throughputs of material and people will tend to be less sustainable th an smaller-scale airports given similar technologies and regulatory complia nce. This is theoretically supported and illustrated with waste arising as an indicator at reviewed airports. Despite governmental policies of sustain able mobility, there is a disjunction between EU and UK policy on airports and individual airport practice, and environmental sustainability theory. I n the UK and EU, airport practice and governmental policy is to mitigate th e impacts of aviation, but not at the expense of its aviation growth. This mitigation practice is summarised for the reviewed airports and presented i n a framework that accounts for the suggested, interim approach to sustaina bility assessment. (C) 2001 Academic Press.