December 17, 2021
Airport Regions Council (ARC) and EUROCONTROL have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to reinforce their joint efforts to achieve a sustainable aviation sector in the following decades.
In that path, both organisations agree to support the development of EUROCONTROL's Collaborative Environmental Management (CEM) as a key tool. CEM Specification is a framework to improve the relations between public territorial administrations and airports. It can help establish predictability and efficient relations with the airport, leading to collaborative solutions beneficial to all stakeholders involved. Adopting CEM as a continued and organised dialogue with local authorities and communities as a sine qua non condition can contribute to achieving sustainable development goals and delivering in other areas such as quality of life, health outcomes, air quality, and noise.
ARC welcomes the opportunities of this working arrangement as CEM can:
Support understanding and awareness of environmental/operational inter-dependencies among internal operational stakeholders;
Focus on identifying the root causes of environmental impacts/risks and facilitating common sustainable solutions;
Facilitate a robust and transparent dialogue that can harmonise relations with authorities and engagement with local communities and businesses.
ARC believes that the relations with external stakeholders of airports are crucial. This Specification may help solve issues that many European airport regions are facing now and will in the longer term. ARC considers that the CEM working arrangement must always include permanent dialogue and agreements with local authorities and communities as a must.
Erich Valentin, ARC President commented: "After years of successful collaboration Airport Regions Council and EUROCONTROL decided to strengthen the common and committed work for sustainable aviation, signing this Memorandum of Understanding. The MoU underlines that the shared vision is the best way to ensure the citizens' quality of life and a sustainable future for aviation".
Philippe Merlo, DECMA Director at EUROCONTROL explained: “In the coming years the aviation sector will have to tackle the historic challenge of decarbonisation. EUROCONTROL’s CEM supports airports and their partners to put in place the best processes to successfully lower their environmental impact. The ARC, as the association representing regional and local authorities which host or neighbour an airport, is an important partner for airports and communities as they seek to minimise environmental impacts. We welcome the opportunity to cooperate closely with ARC and their members to accelerate aviation decarbonisation.”
