Sutcliffe Marcus, Hooper Paul, and, Thomas Callum

Exploring the Potential for the Commercial Application of Ecological Footprinting Analysis: An Airport Case Study.

Sutcliffe Marcus, Dr Hooper Paul, and, Professor Thomas Callum
Manchester Metropolitan University

Abstract

In recent years there has been an increase in the number of companies attempting to quantify their environmental impacts in support of external publications such as corporate environmental and corporate sustainability reports, and as part of environmental management systems. However, whilst the use of quantitative indicators of environmental performance has increased and allowed companies to assess progress against internal benchmarks, there has been a distinct lack of inter-company comparisons and certainly few attempts to benchmark performance against any absolute measure of environmental sustainability.
Key reasons for this lack of benchmarking have been the difficulties encountered in establishing consistent accountancy frameworks and acceptable aggregation metrics. This paper explores the potential of applying an emerging aggregation tool – Ecological Footprinting Analysis (EFA) – to the business context. To date, EFA has largely been used to assess the aggregate environmental impacts of national populations and to compare this with the global supply of environmental goods and services as expressed in ‘global hectares’ per capita. This has served to illustrate the extent to which many economies are exceeding their ecological carrying capacity. In partnership with Manchester Airport plc and Best Foot Forward Ltd. the research presented here sets out to identify some of the challenges and opportunities inherent in the application of this technique to a new business sector, with the aim of demonstrating its utility to airport managers charged with controlling future environmental impact and contributing to more sustainable development in the sector.

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