Towards Sustainable Aviation

Paul Upham, Janet Maughan, David Raper, Callum Thomas, Paul Upham, Janet Maughan, David Raper, Callum Thomas

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136551253
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Local & Regional Planning Public Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Aviation is integral to the global economy but it is also one of the main obstacles to environmentally sustainable development. It is one of the world's fastest growing - and most polluting - industries. What can be done to retain the economic and other benefits it brings, without the associated pollution, noise, congestion and loss of countryside? In this volume, industry, policy and research experts examine how to address the problems, and what it would take to achieve genuinely sustainable aviation - looking at technological, policy and demand-management options. Without far-reaching changes the problems caused by aviation can only multiply and worsen. This work seeks to take an important step in diagnosing the problems and in pointing towards their solutions.

Part 1

Trends and Issues

Chapter 1

Introduction: Perspectives on Sustainability and Aviation

Paul Upham

STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK

Towards Sustainable Aviation discusses notable trends and issues relating to sustainability and aviation from a variety of academic, industrial and political perspectives. The book is split into three parts. Part 1 is authored by UK academics involved in researching different aspects of the aviation industry. It sets out the main contemporary environmental, social and economic issues associated with aviation. Part 2, with a broader range of authors, describes some approaches to mitigating and reducing aviation–environment problems. Part 3 addresses the contentious nature of aviation growth. Where Parts 1 and 2 provide relatively extended comment on aviation and sustainability, Part 3 allows commentators from a range of sectors and perspectives to express their opinions more succinctly. In this way, we hope that readers will understand more, not only of some of the problems of aviation, together with some of the latest thinking on associated mitigations and perhaps even solutions, but also of the disparate opinion on the subject. By including the views of the industry and of representative non-governmental organizations (NGOs), we aim to have been as inclusive of the range of opinion as is reasonably possible. The remainder of this introductory chapter sets the scene by considering the implications for aviation of differing approaches to sustainability and to the regulation of aviation impacts.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF AVIATION

During the course of the 20th century, air transport has become one of the world’s most influential industries. Aviation is a major direct and indirect employer – it facilitates the expansion of world trade and provides opportunities for travel and tourism. Few people would want a world without the possibility of air travel. While this is an unlikely prospect, a world of unlimited air travel is likely to be equally unacceptable. At issue is not whether or not there should be aviation, but at what point for different regions and nations the disadvantages of additional air capacity outweigh the advantages. How sufficiency should be determined in this context and who should determine it are also key issues.

In 1999, following a request from the United Nations (UN) International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the parties to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published an important report on the atmospheric impacts of aviation (IPCC, 1999). The IPCC noted that aviation has experienced rapid expansion as the world economy has grown (IPCC, 1999). Passenger traffic (expressed as revenue passenger-kilometres) has grown since 1960 at nearly 9 per cent per year, 2.4 times the global average gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate. Freight traffic, approximately 80 per cent of which is carried by passenger aircraft, has also grown over the same time period. Although the rate of growth of passenger traffic has slowed to about 5 per cent in 1997 as the industry is maturing in some parts of the world, growth rates of 5 per cent per year are expected to continue for the next 10 to 15 years (IPCC, 1999).

As the GDP of a country increases, there tends to be a shift towards faster modes of passenger transportation (Schafer and Victor, in Clarke, 2001, p2). In the US, with no large-scale passenger rail infrastructure and little political will to construct infrastructure for high-speed rail, aviation is likely to continue to be the primary high-speed transportation mode for the foreseeable future (Clarke, 2001, p2). In smaller island states scattered throughout Asia, where the centres of commerce and trade are separated by stretches of ocean, aviation offers a means of transportation that is significantly faster than marine ship. Similarly, in Africa and South America, aviation offers a means of high-speed transportation that is independent of terrain for linking centres of commerce and trade. Similar comments might be made of China, the aviation market of which Boeing expects to grow at twice the average rate over the next 20 years (Anon, 2000). In general, then, as most economies develop and the GDP of these economies increase, there is likely to be increased passenger air transportation (Clarke, 2001, p2). This conclusion is supported by a second study that indicates that the travel growth for a country averages 1.7 per cent above the forecasts for economic growth as measured by the GDP (Anon, 2000).

The environmental consequences of contemporary aviation are significant. Of particular note at the global scale is the contribution of aviation to global climate change. Although global aviation emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) are a small percentage of carbon emissions worldwide, they are still roughly equivalent to the carbon emissions of industrialized countries such as Canada and the UK (US GAO, 2000). More locally, aircraft and airport operations generate noise from take-off and landings, engine testing, surface transport and construction, so that noise is widely considered to be one of the most serious environmental problems of aviation. Although perception of noise is subjective, it can contribute to sleep disturbance problems and other related physiological and psychological effects (Morrell et al, 1997; Bullinger et al, 1999). Other airport-related environmental issues include contaminated land, ground and surface water at airports arising from jet fuels, aircraft de-icing operations (Turnbull and Bevan, 1995), waste generation and land take. Moreover, in the UK increases in the emissions of surface transport to airports may contribute to exceeding statutory air quality standards (Maughan and Raper, 2000). Several European airports already apply charges to aircraft gaseous emissions as a means of influencing air quality and noise impacts.

DISTINGUISHING ECO-EFFICIENCY AND SUSTAINABILITY

In the UK, a government (pre-legislative) White Paper on air transport aims to establish a framework that will ensure that the long-term development of aviation in the UK is sustainable (DETR, 2000a). This book covers two aspects of the associated debate. On one hand are themes of environmental efficiency and mitigation, in the sense of reducing environmental impact per unit of business performance – the latter, in this case, primarily being the number of people transported by air (though different parts of the aviation industry have differing, if related, business priorities). It is on this side of the debate that there is most common ground among the different constituents of the aviation industry, its consultants, regulators and NGOs. At the most general level, this side of the debate concerns ‘doing more with less’ (DETR, 1999) and echoes the injunctions for materials and energy efficiency of Factor 4 and beyond by von Weizsäcker et al (1998). Related to this are arguments for a more service-based, closed-loop economy motivated by capitalist ethics, exemplified in the natural capitalism espoused by Hawken et al (2000) and forming part of the rhetoric and substance of the Natural Step message (Robèrt et al, 1997; Natrass and Altomare, 1999).

Mitigation of the types of local environmental impact discussed by Callum Thomas and Martin Lever in Chapter 6 and the health impacts of aviation discussed by Ken Hume and Adrian Watson in Chapter 4 – impacts which form the most obvious downside of the socio-economic benefits discussed by Robert Caves in Chapter 3 – are likely to involve relatively consensual, site-specific enhancements of environmental efficiency. Reductions or stasis in the ambient noise around an airport, for example, may obviously be achieved through quieter aircraft. Technological advances may obviate the much more contentious option of fewer aircraft. If the number of aircraft rises – as it has generally – but noise is constant or reduced, this constitutes an environmental efficiency gain in terms of the specific indicator of near-airport noise. Many of the chapters and some of the commentaries in the book refer to environmental efficiency or mitigation of such localized impacts near or at airports: for example, Chapters 4 and 6 referred to above, the commentary on potential efficiency improvements to air traffic management by Arthur Lieuwen and Ted Elliff of EUROCONTROL in Chapter 12, the commentary on airline initiatives by Hugh Somerville in Chapter 12, and Chapter 9 on air freight and the implications of just-in-time logistics by David Gillingwater, Ian Humphreys and Robert Watson. Similarly, corporate environmental management as discussed in Chapter 7 by Paul Hooper, Bridget Heath and Janet Maughan is likely to lead to reductions in materials usage and waste production per unit of business output at an airport site or with respect to an airline’s corporate boundary.

On the other hand is the issue of sustainability, the meaning and implications of which are intellectually and physically contested. Eco-efficiency and mitigation are relatively straightforward to observe with respect to an aspect of the environmental quality of a site (eg ambient noise near an airport), a single input (eg fuel) or a unit of business output (eg passengers entering a terminal). Moreover, pursuit of eco-efficiency does not imply a constraint on growth in the scale of an activity. Eco-efficiency is a win–win activity for corporate growth and ‘the environment’ if that environment is defined in only a few terms or with a narrow geographic focus.

Strictly defined, however, indicating environmental sustainability requires assessment of product and service life cycles, linked to protocols for allocating consumption and emission quotas (Upham, 2001). Only if such protocols exist for relating discrete activity to environmental systems can one reliably assess the sustainability of a sector, industry, business or other organization. In the absence of these, all that can be said is that an organization is increasing or reducing its environmental sustainability (Upham, 2001).

Drawing on ecological economic ideas (Georgescu-Roegen, 1971; Daly, 1977, 1992), early work on life-cycle analysis (Schmidt-Bleek, 1993) and an understanding of the Natural Step approach to sustainability (Upham, 2000a), a precautious approach to assessing environmental sustainability via measuring the flows of masses mobilized by the human economy through the biosphere implies that growth in the physical scale of aviation will generally entail movement away from conditions of environmental sustainability.

The adverse environmental impacts implicit in this general rule can be postponed to the extent that there are conventional materials and fuel efficiency savings through the entire life cycles of production and service processes supportive of aviation. At some point, however, the additional material (including fuel) needed to support growth would literally outweigh that saved by material efficiency, such that adverse impact would, in general, begin to rise again. Alternatively, the impact of growth could be reduced if it involved the replacement of mined and subsequently synthesized materials and fuels with use of biomass and renewable energy in such a way as to maintain or enhance vegetative soil cover and, preferably, biodiversity. Again, this replacement would need to be through the life cycles of production and service processes supportive of aviation (Upham, 2001).

Either way, it is the sheer scale of aviation growth – outlined in Chapter 2 by Ian Humphreys – that justifies special attention to its environmental impacts. In wider terms, the European Environment Agency (EEA) has drawn attention to the way in which the persistence of key environmental problems are a consequence of the overall scale of resource use (EEA, 2001a,b). These problems include global warming as discussed by David Lee and David Raper in Chapter 5. The EEA is of the view that if environmental and sustainability aims and targets, such as those proposed in the European Union’s Sixth Environment Action Programme, are to be reached, higher efficiencies in the use of materials and energy will be necessary (EEA, 2001a,b). The precautious approach to environmental sustainability discussed above requires that ...