Innovative Thinking  |  Airport carbon measurement toolkit

Counting carbon

A tailored digital toolkit for the measurement of embodied carbon of airport buildings and infrastructure assets could influence decisions on future projects. Thomas Johnson reports.

Airline trade body the International Air Transport Association (IATA) expects global demand for air travel to grow in the coming decades. In response, many airports in the UK and around the world are looking to expand.

But there are national and sector level targets to achieve net zero by 2050, so the way airport buildings and infrastructure assets are designed and constructed has to change.

The digital toolkit could be used to benchmark the embodied carbon of airport asset types

Consultant AtkinsRéalis, in collaboration with IATA, has developed a suite of digital tools to estimate the embodied carbon associated with the construction of airport terminal buildings, runways and multi-storey car parks.

They say this is the first “digital toolkit” to provide these measurements for these different structures and assets in one package.

AtkinsRéalis aviation technical director Andy Yates says the tool can be used at the very early design stage of a project, when it can add the most value. This enables airport operators to better understand and mitigate the impacts of construction-related activities that contribute to carbon.

Embodied carbon assessment was “a challenging and previously unexplored area” in the aviation sector according to Yates. Most current tools measure carbon in other types of buildings or infrastructure, and are used later in the design process.

“Airport infrastructure is so different to other types of infrastructure that we’re used to capturing,” says AtkinsRéalis building design team embodied carbon lead Will Lavelle.

“Understanding the carbon in a terminal building is nothing like other buildings, as they have big open spaces. It’s very different to a traditional office block that we understand very well.”

DEVELOPMENT

The fact that embodied carbon assessment is a new area for airport construction made the creation of the toolkit challenging.

“One of the key issues at the beginning was that we didn’t really have anything to go with. We did a lot of research to understand what other carbon assessments had been done on other buildings, particularly completed ones because those are the best to learn from.

“We started doing one on an airport a few years ago, but it was not completed,” explains Lavelle.

Atkins put together a multidisciplinary team including architects, airport planners, structural engineers and carbon experts to develop the digital tools.

Yates says this broad expertise helped the team develop a tool that accounts for the complexity and multifaceted approach required for assessing the embodied carbon in airport assets.

“Understanding the carbon in a terminal building is nothing like other buildings

The technology works by analysing sets of data that help inform different design stages.

Initially it asks what an asset’s embodied carbon is in general terms at an early stage of the design process.

This is calculated by stating what the asset is, its measurements and any extra features it might include.

Knowing this in the first instance is useful for clients as it helps inform basic discussions around carbon as early as possible, according to Lavelle.

The second stage involves going into more detail about a carbon estimate for the specific scheme that the client is implementing. This involves inputting quantities of specific materials that will be used as well as other more technical data.

OBJECTIVES

An important objective for the creation of the digital toolkit is to benchmark the embodied carbon of airport asset types.

“Where our focus has been with this piece of work is that upfront early thinking about what an appropriate amount of embodied carbon of a particular design should be,” says Yates.

He says the idea is for airport operators to know the expected embodied carbon of each asset type of a certain size at a very early stage.

“If we can use this toolkit to start measuring existing buildings retrospectively or new buildings, we can then start pulling data together and put ourselves in a position where we do have benchmark data for projects going forward,” Lavelle adds.

Optimising clients’ decarbonisation activities is another reason why AtkinsRéalis decided to bring this solution to market.

Yates says the toolkit can help clients decarbonise by making the most of what they have rather than jumping to a “let’s build more” approach. He adds that it would help them reduce the materials needed for an upgrade or a new airport.

The digital toolkit has been used in-house by AtkinsRéalis and has informed several conversations about new airport projects that the consultant has had with clients.

But as Lavelle explains, the process of building it has only just started.

“It’s fair to say the more of these [embodied carbon assessments of airport buildings] we do the more accurate this is going to be“With it we can start to home in on a more accurate and representative solution for carbon. I think it’s fair to say the more of these [embodied carbon assessments of airport buildings] we do the more accurate this is going to be,” he says. “We’re not expecting this to be 100% perfect on day one.”

AtkinsRéalis wants to use IATA’s leverage in the aviation sector to formulate a compatible approach to the carbon assessment of new airport buildings, runways and multi-storey car parks. It could also be used to analyse existing assets.

“Can we use this tool to do a retrospective assessment?” Lavelle asks. “The hope and aim is to use this as a kind of consistent approach across the industry ideally and IATA is in quite a unique position to do that.”

The consultant believes that the data that can be generated by the embodied carbon assessment digital toolkit could influence airport expansion plans or new airport construction decisions.

IATA senior vice president operations, safety and security Nick Careen says: “This innovative digital toolkit will help airports meet their own objectives by providing a crucial platform to evaluate and reduce carbon impacts for new airport developments.

“By facilitating dialogue around carbon mitigation from day one of an airport development project, together we are making headway towards net zero aviation.”