East Midlands Airport has today revealed that it is on track to achieve its carbon neutral operations target by 2012, as its parent company, Manchester Airports Group (MAG), launches its first annual sustainability report.

The report, entitled connecting today and tomorrow, details the Group’s commitment to responsible and sustainable growth by outlining the progress it has made in mitigating its impact on the environment and its neighbours, as well as clearly demonstrating the social and economic benefits that the airport brings to the regions it serves.

The Manchester Airports Group contributes £3.5 billion to the UK economy annually and provides direct employment for around 26,000 people with a further 50,000 jobs created to support the business. Available on the Group’s website magworld.co.uk, the report demonstrates the importance MAG places on growing a sustainable business for the future.

East Midlands Airport’s reduction in emissions also contributes to the wider aviation industry’s own stringent targets. The aviation industry, as a whole, contributes 2-3% to global emissions and 6% towards UK emissions and is the only sector to have set its own targets to reduce climate change, with a commitment to carbon neutral growth from 2020.

The airport, along with the other airports in the Group, was the first airport to commit to all its operations being carbon neutral by 2012 and has led the way for many years by implementing innovative projects.

Penny Coates, Group Board Director responsible for Sustainability said: “We are proud to be launching our first sustainability report and to be setting out some of our achievements to date. We have a strong track record in innovative environmental performance and in supporting the local communities around our airports. We know how critical our airports are to the economic and social development of the regions and the people that they serve, but we must balance the benefits against the need to minimise the effects that our operations have.”

Highlights from the report include:

• UK firsts for East Midlands Airport including; receiving planning permission to install wind turbines on site, planting of a willow farm to provide bio-fuel and in a world first, launched a trial to run an airport passenger transfer bus powered by Liquid Biomethane fuel (LBM), a carbon neutral fuel.
• The airport has incorporated environmentally friendly and carbon reducing techniques into all new buildings, since 2006; including an energy efficient pier, which obtains heat from boreholes, uses rain water in toilets and natural and low energy lighting, in addition, the newly launched on site hotel will deliver a 87% reduction in CO2 and supply up to 90% of the consumed energy from a renewable source.
• The airport achieved the highest of any UK airport for waste recycling. 84% of all waste collected was recycled, which well exceeding the original 50% target.
• East Midlands Airport contributes heavily to the local communities and has awarded £63,323 in grants to local community groups, supporting over 101 projects.
• The airport has maintained its ISO14001 Environmental Management accreditation for the seventh consecutive year
• East Midlands Airport has a specially designed envirozones, where passengers, the community and staff can read more about what the airport is doing to protect the environment and a newly opened education centre, which encourages schools to visit and learn about the airport, alongside their normal curriculum.
• The airport promotes environmentally sound choices amongst customers, by encouraging passengers to offset their journey on the airport’s website and by ensuring good transport links to and from the surrounding areas.

The full MAG Sustainability Report is available to download from www.magworld.co.uk/sr2009