IGIA achieves carbon neutral status, first in Asia-Pacific region

The Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) on Tuesday said the national capital's Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) has become the first airport in the Asia-Pacific region to achieve carbon neutral status.

DIAL is a GMR Group-led consortium which manages and operates IGI airport.

According to DIAL, the announcement on the carbon neutral status was made by Airports Council International (ACI) during the Airport Carbon Accreditation certificate presentation ceremony held in Montreal, Canada.

The globally reputed Airport Carbon Accreditation has upgraded Delhi Airport to "Level 3+, Neutrality", which is the highest level of achievement available to airports across the world.

Carbon neutrality occurs when the net carbon emissions over an entire year is zero. This means the airport absorbs or offsets the same amount of emission that was generated.

"Today, we have delivered on our commitment of achieving sustainable solutions for aviation climate change mitigations made at LPAA-COP 21 (Lima-Paris Action Agenda-Conference of the Parties) last year through carbon neutrality," said I. Prabhakara Rao, Chief Executive Officer, DIAL.

"Going forward we are focussing on energy conservation and exploring alternative solution for generating green energy," Rao was quoted in a statement as saying.

Delhi airport aims to increase its solar power generation capacity to 20 MW by 2020. DIAL has set up a 7.84 MW solar power plant to reduce GHG (greenhouse gas) emission.

DIAL has taken various emission-saving measures at IGI airport which has led to a 51 per cent reduction in specific GHG emission (kgCO2/Pax) during the last five years.

The 39th ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) assembly, which coincided with the event, also explored avenues of attaining climate change mitigation solution among the member nations.

--IANS

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