Share these talks and lectures with your colleagues
Invite colleaguesPractice paper
Environmental, social and governance principles in airports: Drivers, pushback and a way forward
Journal of Airport Management,
19
(2),
119-129
(2025)
Abstract
This paper describes the origins of environmental, social and governance (ESG) in compliance and brand building, and its evolution into a topic of significant strategic importance to airports owing to the stakeholders driving it forward: finance, government, employees and the airport organisational ecosystem. The paper describes factors acting to resist the growth of the ESG trend, while underscoring the importance of ESG as a risk management tool and a way to maintain the airport’s social licence to operate. It describes the approach that Vantage Group has employed to address ESG at its airports, including establishing an indicator framework drawing on widely accepted standards, gathering data to establish a baseline for those indicators, setting goals and embarking on a journey of continuous improvement to enhance ESG performance.
Keywords: ESG; environment; social; governance; climate; sustainability
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
Alex Chapman is the Director – Environment, Social and Governance for Vantage Group. He holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in civil engineering from the University of Toronto, a Master of Business Administration from McGill University, and is a GRI Certified Sustainability Professional, a Certified Energy Manager, a Certified Energy Auditor and a certified Renewable Energy Professional. In his diverse career Alex has done project engineering for sub-sea pipeline installations in Europe for the oil and gas, municipal and power generation sectors; business analysis and IT project management for one of the world’s largest professional services companies; sales and marketing for a solar energy installation contractor; and managed the Climate Change Office of the City of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. He has spoken at the Airports Council International — North America Airport Energy Management Symposium, the International Association of Airport Executives Facilities, Operation, and Airport Managers Conference and the Aviation Festival of the Americas. Alex serves on the Environment Committee and the Accessibility Working Group of the Canadian Airports Council, the Climate Committee of the British Colombia (BC) Aviation Council and is a member of the Association of Energy Engineers.
