Athens Airport Goes for Net Zero Carbon Emissions via ROUTE 2025

Athens International Airport (AIA) has announced “ROUTE 2025”, its official commitment to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2025, prior to the target of 2050 set by Europe’s Airports in June 2019.

Athens Airport’s commitment was announced during the 7th Airport Chief Executives’ Symposium “ACES – Athens” held recently in Athens and attended by 200 top executives from the air transport, finance, and tourism sectors.

During the event, AIA’s CEO Dr. Yiannis Paraschis signed an official commitment, with a focus on 2025, to submit to ACI EUROPE:

– a detailed roadmap, by Q2 2020, for the self-production of clean electricity within the airport boundaries via solar power for self-consumption purposes, aiming to cover 100 percent of the Airport Company’s electricity needs, which corresponds to 91.1 percent of its current carbon footprint.

– a detailed roadmap, by Q4 2020, to address the remaining 8.9 percent of its carbon footprint corresponding to direct emissions from fuel consumption onsite (via initiatives such as the use of electric vehicles, biodiesel, heat pumps, etc).

ACI EUROPE is the European region of Airports Council International, the only worldwide professional association of airport operators.

“In the years to come, the climate change issue will increasingly drive European policies in the fields of air transport and tourism, and the travellers’ behaviour as well,” Dr. Paraschis said.

Through the internationally pioneering initiative “ROUTE 2025”, AIA, having already decreased its carbon footprint by more than 40 percent since 2005 despite the doubling of passenger traffic and becoming accredited at the ultimate level of ACI’s Airport Carbon Accreditation program – Carbon Neutrality – since 2016, has the goal of becoming the first airport operator in Europe to cover 100 percent its electricity needs by on-site production from renewable sources and zeroing out its direct emissions from fuel consumption.

“We commit ourselves to implementing ‘ROUTE 2025’, thus achieving, well ahead of the target set by Europe’s airports for 2050, net zero carbon emissions by consuming only clean, renewable electricity, that will be exclusively produced on our premises, and in addition, zeroing out our carbon emissions from fuel consumption (natural gas, diesel, etc.),” Dr. Paraschis said.

He underlined that “ROUTE 2025” fully incorporates environmental sustainability into AIA’s future development, thus actively contributing to reducing the ecological footprint of Athens as a destination, as well as to the National Energy and Climate Plan.