Ferrovial Airports, as one the leading airport developers and operators, is committed to develop sustainable solutions and achieve Net Zero carbon emissions before the international target date of 2050.
The current four airports, Heathrow, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Southampton, have all achieved carbon neutrality and have set forward the roadmap to achieve Net Zero.
Ferrovial Airports have developed a unique and proprietary tool to assess the level of Sustainability that an airport has. Currently there are no sustainability indexes adapted to airports that cover all main areas of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) that well-recognized indexes such as GRESB, Dow Jones Sustainability Index or MSCI do.
Ferrovial Airports Sustainability Index (FASI) © provides a comprehensive set of almost 400 questions (both quantitative and qualitative) across 19 areas, customized for airport assets. The questions cover from CO2 emissions to gender equality matters, providing a global perspective of the sustainability status of an airport. Each area provides a score (from 0 to 10) that assists to identify what are the issues that need to be addressed if the airport wants to have a high level of sustainability.
The FASI will be used by Ferrovial as an internal tool not just to monitor the airports in the portfolio but also to evaluate the level of sustainability of the airports that the company bids for. With the results of that initial assessment, Ferrovial can include in the business plans specific actions to address those areas with low levels of sustainability.
To define the indicators and questions included in the tool, an analysis of the most popular indexes and standards, such as GRI, GRESB or Dow Jones Sustainability Index, and the current initiatives implemented at airports was performed.
The tool groups together all the issues of relevance to airports from the point of view of sustainability. It offers a perfect balance between complexity and understanding. A comprehensive set of topics are covered under the Ferrovial Airport Sustainability Index in detail to obtain a global vision of the performance of the airport in the sustainability arena.
One of the potential loopholes in any assessment process of a new concession could be the lack of information; in other words, the tool requiring more information than the one made available to the potential future concessionaire. The tool has been tested and validated for different airports and transactions, and it has concluded that the amount of information requested to assess the sustainability of the airport is balanced. It has been proven that the lack of information does not limit the benefits of the tool. In fact, it provides a detailed summary of the results that allow users to identify those pending areas and consider the potential risks that are associated to them.
Key aspects to highlight from the tool include:
- The tool is global, not only focused on environmental sustainability or economic sustainability. Some of the topics included in the index are the quality of the airport as employer or the engagement with local communities, from a social point of view. It also assesses the implementation of policies to ensure good governance, an appropriate risk management or a good reputation strategy.
- Moreover, the tool is versatile. It is thought to be used for any type of airport in any location.
- The FASI offers specificity while versatility. It is specifically designed for airports and it includes the actions and policies that airports are expected to accomplish.
- In order to achieve objectivity, all the areas assessed have the same weight in the index. It is considered that every area and the three pillars are equally important from the point of view of sustainability.
- As technological evolution speeds up exponentially and market is continuously changing, the tool is designed to be flexible. Target values for quantitative questions can be redefined to calibrate the tool depending on the market trends.
- Ferrovial Airport Sustainability Index can be used to assess the status as many times as necessary and at any moment. Accordingly, the availability of the proposed index and the tool is higher than most of the existing indexes.
- In addition to the previous characteristics, the tool is designed to be user-friendly and self-explanatory. No additional training or user guides are necessary to fully understand the tool and to use it.
The use of the FASI brings many competitive advantages, both for airports in the portfolio and for airports in bidding processes.
