Managing airport futures using environmental management systems

Environmental management systems (EMS) are specifically designed to instruct organisations in the management of environmental impacts, and are considered by many to be the most valuable tool for building a sustainable future. However, because EMS are hinged to best practice and existing leading technology, they tend to lock-in current thinking. This is problematic for businesses such as airports, which are increasingly looking towards future solutions to emerging and intransigent issues such as noise, CO2 emissions, congestion and safety. Ways need to be found for EMS to balance existing knowledge frameworks with creative and experimental ideas and constructs. As the central information source for EMS, indicators are key to the evolution of their design. This article explores ways of creating indicators that transcend the constraints of existing measuring, monitoring and reporting regimes to facilitate more sustainable airport futures. Accordingly, the article has three objectives. Firstly to demonstrate that EMS for airports have significant scope for improvement. The second objective is to show that rethinking what indicators are and do is fundamental to realising that improvement. And finally, the argument for sustainability-prioritising, contextually constructed indicators that build on current best practice by encouraging innovative institutional learning and reform is the best way of advancing more sustainable airports.\u