VINCI Airports obtains ACA 4+ environmental certification for all airports in Portugal

VINCI Airports has released that Portugal’s airports have been awarded the ACA 4+ certification, the highest level of the ACI’s environmental assessment programme. This certification recognises that airports have fully accounted and reported direct and indirect CO2 emissions related to their activities and operations, have significantly reduced their direct emissions, offset their residual direct emissions, and started to reduce their indirect emissions. ACA 4+ also recognises that airports have set carbon emission reduction targets consistent with a sub-2°C warming scenario under the Paris Agreement.

Portugal thus becomes the first country in the European Union to have its entire airport system (ten airports) ACA 4+ certified. This unprecedented performance is based on the exemplary deployment of VINCI Airports’ decarbonisation plan by Portuguese airports, which have already reduced their direct emissions by 35% since 2018.

As a pillar of this action plan, VINCI Airports’ photovoltaic production programme is currently being deployed at all Portuguese airports, with the first unit already in activity at Faro airport since 2022. VINCI Airports’ forest carbon sink programme, aimed at sequestering residual emissions (scopes 1 and 2), has also been deployed near Faro, Porto Santo and Lisbon airports.

Among the scope 3 actions implemented at Portugal’s airports in 2022, are the opening of Portugal’s largest electric vehicle charging station at Lisbon airport and the first commercial flights with sustainable biofuels (SAFs) at Lisbon, Porto and Azores airports.

VINCI Airports also announced that OMA’s Mexican airports, which joined its network in December 2022, have just received their first ACA level 1 accreditation. Belgrade airport, which joined the programme in 2022, has been awarded ACA level 2.