Heathrow 2.0: Inspiring a Sustainable Future for Air Travel
Heathrow 2.0, launched in 2017, signalled the beginning of a new chapter for Europe’s busiest airport. It sets out an inspiring journey to a sustainable future for air travel, moving beyond Heathrow’s own operations to create positive change across the industry.
The second annual update highlights progress to date against 10 flagship goals and associated milestones. Coming at a time when there’s a groundswell of public support for concerted action on sustainability issues, the Heathrow 2.0 progress update provides an insight into an organisation prepared to ask bold questions and seek ambitious responses.
Highlights in 2018 included:
- Publishing a Carbon Neutral Growth Roadmap, outlining how the airport can use its scale and convening power to influence industry transformation
- Launching its first UK peatland restoration project to demonstrate the opportunity for high quality carbon offsetting in the UK
- Celebrating a second year as an accredited Living Wage employer and publishing a plan to ensure direct suppliers also guarantee the Living Wage by 2020, benefiting 3,200 airport colleagues
- Approaching near-parity on its Gender Pay Gap, which has been reduced from 6.53% in 2017 to 0.56% in 2018
- Continuing in efforts to inspire innovation and collaboration via the Heathrow Centre of Excellence for Sustainability, which awarded its first £20,000 innovation prize to a project planting new willow trees that will in the future help to power Terminal 2’s biomass boiler
- Participating in the UN Environment Programme’s Wild for Life campaign, and collaborating with Border Force, cargo handling crew and airlines to raise awareness of illegal wildlife trafficking
In a year that Heathrow celebrated winning the Edie Sustainable Business of the Year Award, this progress report recognises the significant steps that have been made, whilst acknowledging the urgency and scale of the journey ahead.
