Time to deliver on our sustainability targets

Today, World Environment Day, is the day we launch our 2013 Corporate Responsibility Report.

You can read the full report on NATS’ website where it highlights some of what we’ve achieved over the past year in reducing aviation emissions, managing noise, limiting our own carbon footprint and making a real difference in the communities where we live and work.

But, it also outlines the real challenges we now face.

During 2013 we enabled savings of 59,000 tonnes of fuel, thereby avoiding 190,000 tonnes of CO₂ from being released into the atmosphere. It was our best ever year ever in terms of savings, something that I believe NATS can be duly proud of.

Since our environment programme began in 2006, we’ve cumulatively saved £270m worth of fuel for our airline customers and when you consider that up to 40% of an airline’s costs are fuel, these are savings well worth having. These are outcomes that are not just good for the environment, but good for the economy too.

We’ve done it through working more closely with our customers, tirelessly working to drive inefficiency out of our airspace, embedding environmental awareness in our training and by building the tools that allow us to measure and track our performance in unparalleled detail.

I spoke about all that and more in a recent film that you can watch below.

Environment – Ian Jopson from NATS on Vimeo.

But, in spite this important progress; we still have a huge challenge ahead of us.

We have an interim target to enable an average of 4% savings in CO₂ per aircraft by the end of the year and at the moment we’re at 2.2% with only eight months to go. By 2020, we’re aiming for a 10% reduction.

As such we’re now in delivery mode and you can expect to see the pace of change continue to accelerate over the coming weeks and months. New tools, new procedures and new designs – it will be a challenge, but nothing worth doing was ever easy.