ABSTRACT
Sustainable development reflects an underlying tension between achieving economic growth and addressing environmental challenges, and this is particularly the case for the aviation sector. Although the sector is largely considered to be economically and socially sustainable, it also generates environmental concerns because of climate change impacts from aviationrelated emissions. Despite a dip due to the current economic recession, United Kingdom air travel has increased over the last ten years. There were 219 million terminal passengers at UK airports in 2011 compared
with 167 million in 1999 [1]. There is also likely to be a further long-term growth in demand with a knock-on impact on emissions such as carbon dioxide (CO2). Although much of the aviation-related focus has fallen on reducing aircraft emissions, airports have been under increasing pressure to support the vision of a low carbon energy future. In particular, in recent years there has been a focus on reducing the share of emissions from surface access journeys to and from the airport.
