Small airport adoption of environmental practices – a managerial perspective

Although rarely considered to be major sources of pollution, the collective environmental impact of the world’s small airport is significant and individual sites aspire to improve their environmental performance. However, small airports may struggle to adopt environmental practices (EP) that enable larger airports to manage and mitigate their externalities. As such, there is an unrealised potential for environmental mitigation at small airports. The aim of this research is to explore the drivers and barriers to EP adoption at small airports. Using in-depth semi-structured interviews with airport managers and environmental officers representing 19 small airports in the UK, this paper identifies and examines the drivers and barriers to EP engagement for small airports. The findings show that although cost can be an issue, human resource availability, levels of management support, and local site-specific factors often pose the biggest challenges to EP adoption. Policy and practice-based recommendations to support small airport engagement with EPs are offered in the conclusion.