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Aviation and Sustainability |
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There are over 300 definitions of “sustainable development”. It means different things to different people. At governmental level however, sustainable development is often taken to mean "… development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.". This is the definition adopted by the World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission) 1987. This has since been interpreted widely as achieving the continual balance of social, economic and environmental imperatives.
Like any other form of public mass transport that relies on finite planetary resources, aviation cannot (in its present form) be considered sustainable in the very long term. Because of the finite nature of the resources upon which aviation relies, it is more realistic in the medium term to think how best to improve the sustainability of air transport rather than it achieving sustainable development.
Demand for air transport is continually growing and, if this demand is to be met with all the attendant benefits, society must also accept the costs (noise, pollution, climate change, risk, resource use etc). Thus, if aviation is to continue to play its role in our present concept of sustainability, where possible it must achieve a balance of social, economic and environmental imperatives. It is also clear therefore, that all practical opportunities to minimise these adverse costs should be achieved, otherwise aviation will not achieve the required balanced. And if the balance cannot be achieved, society will then face difficult decisions regarding the global economy and global mobility.
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How does aviation affect sustainability? |
Aviation brings several sustainability related benefits including:
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- freedom of mobility;
- leisure;
- improvement to health through poverty reduction;
- cultural enrichment and diversity;
- employment;
- technology transfer;
- major direct, secondary and indirect economic improvement;
- global business links;
- military security;
- positive globalisation effects.
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It also provides costs including:
- finite resource depletion;
- noise;
- atmospheric emissions (air quality, ozone depletion, acid rain and climate change);
- water and land pollution;
- waste products;
- negative globalisation effects;
- associated adverse health impacts;
- accidents.
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Aviation can be viewed as having improved sustainability if on balance: it demonstrates an overall reduction in adverse enviro-socio-economic impacts and/or an increase in positive enviro-socio-economic impacts. It should be borne in mind however, that because of its reliance on scarce resources, even if current equipment, technology and techniques are fully optimised, this will not make European air transport sustainable in the longer term without a major step change in technology or the supporting framework. The ‘sustainability’ concept is often simplistically portrayed as:
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How does sustainable development affect aviation? |
This is a huge question and cannot be easily answered. It is clear that our present concept of quality of life includes the freedom to travel and the ability to source goods from the lowest (internal) cost source. And, as the developing world progresses, this demand will apply to more and more people. This in turn is stimulating the continually growing demand for air travel.
However in recognition of the implications of the increasing adverse sustainability effects, more and more environmental legislation is being produced aimed at improving the environmental efficiency of air travel.
This tension between the need to boost the positive elements arising from aviation, whilst curtailing the negative impacts, is at present not being addressed in a holistic way. Thus some aviation stakeholders have conflicting requirements. The industry will need to reconcile these tensions in order to map out a more sustainable (very long term) future for air transport. This may require some very difficult choices to be made.
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How do we quantify the sustainability of aviation? |
Whilst there are some sophisticated methods for assessing the individual positive and negative effects of aviation, to truly evaluate sustainability we need to be able to weigh these different factors in order to determine whether there is a net improvement or deterioration. At present this is done at a political level for example through planning processes where permission to grow is either approved or denied, and when aviation policy and legislation is enacted.
Sometimes a change can result in both negative aspects being reduced and positive aspects being increased. However, more often a change will result in trade-offs between positive and negative elements, which sums up aviation overall. At a technical level, aviation stakeholders need improved decision support tools and methodologies to help them to improve aviation’s sustainability.
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How can aviation’s sustainability be improved? |
At present, society’s remit for aviation is to serve demand for air transport. This implies ongoing growth and as previously stated, whilst it is not possible to make aviation sustainable (in its present form) in the very long term, much can be and is being done to improve aviation’s sustainability including:
- ensuring safety and security;
- efficiently optimising available capacity;
- collaborating to achieve a shared vision for more sustainable aviation;
- making decisions based on optimising the balance between social, economic and environmental imperatives;
- serving the need for mobility in a manner where the greatest overall benefit will arise, meeting the needs of stakeholders;
- taking every opportunity to minimise adverse impacts and resource use by creating and operating more efficient ATM systems, equipment and technology;
- targeting efforts where they will produce the greatest improvement in our citizen’s quality of life;
- investing in adequate research, training, education and awareness;
- being transparent and honest about both the good and bad aspects of air transport;
- avoid conflicting policy and regulations.
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Many individual aviation stakeholders are implementing some of the above measures and investing heavily in achieving the above aims. They have adopted environmental management systems and strive to meet corporate social responsibility obligations. Some collaboration in sustainability is emerging through trade associations (e.g. Air Transport Action Group (ATAG), International Air Transport Association (IATA) and Airports Council International (ACI)) and global organisations (e.g. United Nations) but there is a long way to go before we can claim to be more sustainable in the longer term.
Ideally, aviation would be to operate in a framework where the value of aviation is recognised, external costs fully understood, and adequate safeguards (both of resources required by aviation and to control the adverse impacts from aviation) are put in place to ensure that aviation can play its optimum role for society in the very long term.
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Last validation: 11/07/2007
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