Wellington Airport rated 3rd best in world for airport sustainability

Wellington Airport has scored highly for sustainability in an independent global assessment, rated third in the world for participating airports.

The assessment was carried out by GRESB who rate the performance and management of environmental, social and governance (ESG) efforts of companies worldwide.

Wellington Airport scored 98 out of 100, ranking 23rd in total out of 649 entities across a range of industries.

As part of this, Wellington Airport was rated first in the world amongst airports for ESG performance and first equal amongst all industries. The airport has also achieved a 5-Star GRESB rating for the first time, recognising entities in the top 20% of the benchmark.

“This is a fantastic result which reflects a lot of hard work that’s gone on behind the scenes in recent years,” says Wellington Airport chief executive Matt Clarke.

“It’s great to have a credible, independent assessment showing where we stand on a global scale.”

Recent improvements at Wellington Airport include:

• Improving the energy efficiency of our buildings and infrastructure
• Recycling 100% of asphalt removed from our 2021 runway resurfacing (nearly 18,000 tonnes)
• Diverting a third of total waste from landfill last year
• Replaced a third of our vehicle fleet with electric vehicles so far.

“At the same time, there is still a lot of work to be done. Our aim is to strongly reduce our waste, water and energy use by 2030.

“It’s also essential we help the aviation industry to decarbonise. We are leading a technical group with other New Zealand airports and airlines looking at the requirements to support electric flights, and have partnered with electric aircraft manufacturer Heart Aerospace.”

The overall GRESB score is based on performance (60%) and management (40%).