Explained: Can airports become more sustainable?

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]We all know it. Flying equals lots of greenhouse gas emissions equals really bad for the environment. But what about the emissions of the places where planes take off and land?

[00:00:13]Europe is home to some of the busiest [music] and largest airports in the world.

[00:00:18]One way to make things more sustainable on the ground is by changing airport architecture [music] and infrastructure. For example, Oslo Airport was built using recycled [music] steel. At Zurich Airport, rainwater is collected from the roof to flush some of the toilets.

[00:00:35]And in Athens, the airport has installed solar panels for its electricity supply.

[00:00:40]These are great ideas, but we also must beware of greenwashing claims used by some airports such as carbon neutrality.

[00:00:48]Often, a company, or [music] in this case an airport, offsets its CO2 emissions by financing projects that are meant to trap them, like planting trees.

[00:00:58]>> [music] >> But climate scientists have long raised doubts over the effectiveness of such schemes.

[00:01:04]The problem here [music] is that this doesn't actually lower the amount of CO2 emissions coming from the airport, nor does it guarantee that the financed [music] project will offset all of the airport's CO2 emissions.

[00:01:16]In the end, some of these measures may be encouraging, [music] but emissions will remain far too high as long as planes, and by extension airports, continue to work [music] in their current form.