– Manchester Airport becomes the first carbon neutral airport in the UK;

– Hyderabad Airport becomes second carbon neutral airport in India and wider Asia-Pacific region;

– 37% of air passengers worldwide now travel through airports certified under the four levels of the Airport Carbon Accreditation programme.

Hot on the heels of the recent COP22 climate negotiations there have been announcement of two airports becoming carbon neutral: Manchester Airport and Hyderabad Rajiv Gandhi International Airport. Both have now achieved carbon neutral status (Level 3+), certified by the independent carbon management programme known as Airport Carbon Accreditation.

This brings the total number of carbon neutral airports around the world to 27, while the overall programme now counts 176 airports across the four available levels of certification.

The Airport Carbon Accreditation programme – launched by the airport association ACI EUROPE in 2009 – certifies airports at four different levels of accreditation covering all stages of carbon management (i) Mapping; (ii) Reduction; (iii) Optimisation and (iv) + Neutrality). It is independently administered and has the support of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), United Nation Environment Programme (UNEP), the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), the European Union (EU) and others.