The ACA (Airport Carbon Accreditation) airport decarbonization program developed by ACI Europe (the European branch of Airports Council International) continues to ramp up. VINCI Airports has just announced that the ten Portuguese airports that the airport operator has in its portfolio have reached level 4+ (Transformation), one of the highest levels of decarbonization in the program, which recently became level 5, followed only by level 6 (Transition). Portugal is the first European country to have all its airports reach this level of decarbonization. 

Portuguese airports have reduced their CO2 emissions by 35% since 2018

The ten airports involved are Lisbon's Humberto Delgado Airport, Porto Airport, Faro Airport, Funchal Airport (Madeira), Ponta Delgada Airport (Madeira), Horta Airport (Azores), Porto Santo Airport (Madeira), Santa Maria Airport (Azores), Flores Airport (Azores), and Beja Airport. The "Transformation" certification recognizes that the airports have fully accounted for and reported their direct and indirect CO2 emissions related to airport activities and operations, that they have significantly reduced their direct emissions, offset their residual direct emissions and started to reduce indirect emissions. Finally, it recognizes that the airports have set carbon emission reduction targets consistent with a sub-2°C warming scenario of the Paris Agreement. The fact that the ten Portuguese airports were able to achieve this certification is based on the deployment of VINCI Airports' decarbonization program, which has already enabled them to reduce their direct emissions by 35% since 2018. For example, VINCI Airports' photovoltaic generation program is being deployed at all Portuguese airports, with the first unit delivered to Faro Airport in 2022. And the forest carbon sink program, aimed at sequestering residual emissions (scope 1 and 2), has been deployed near Faro, Porto and Lisbon airports.