An environment policy soon for Sri Lanka's aviation industry

SriLankan Airlines introduced a series of measures to create awareness and be environment conscious titled 'Green' initiatives this week On World Environment Day (WED). This includes tree planting, plant distribution campaigns, children's art competitions relating to environment conservation, photography competition highlighting environmental destruction, special awareness campaigns for airline employees in the global network and sponsorship of external programs to create awareness for school children to think 'Green'.

The airline's Go Green Steering Committee is spearheading the campaigns this week.

Collectively, world airlines have pledged to halve emissions by 2050 as CO2 emissions from aviation currently account for 2 percent of global emissions with a prediction that it will reach 2.5 percent by 2050. IATA sends a strong message to all airlines to achieve zero emission aircraft operations, in 50 years.

SriLankan Airlines formulated its Corporate Environment Policy in January 2009 to address a range of issues on an on-going basis.

The focus has been on aviation fuel management and conservation through the adoption of best practices.

The performance of every aircraft is evaluated to ensure optimum operational efficiency. The measures adopted to reduce fuel consumption during 'pushback', taxiing, descend, landing, the use of ground power units while stationary and increasing efficiency through heightened engine maintenance and aircraft servicing are some of the current measures.

SriLankan's initiatives were validated by an IATA team of fuel efficiency experts which served to be recognised as a significant effort to reduce carbon emissions.

SriLankan launched South Asia's first 'Planet Friendly Flight' as an initial step towards influencing employees, customers and the public to be collectively responsible for the environment and in what ways everyone could contribute to make a difference.

An environment unit is constantly identifying areas of weight reduction on aircraft which has a considerable impact on fuel savings. The airline's long-term intention is to transform all into 'Planet Friendly' flights.

SriLankan Airlines became one of the first airlines to satisfy a key environmental requirement of the EU with regard to monitoring aircraft emissions.

It carried out comprehensive collection of emissions data from the entire fleet of aircraft throughout 2010 and the EU approved the benchmarking of this data, signifying acceptance of SriLankan's Aircraft Emissions Monitoring System - a state-of -the-art system developed by the airline's own Aviation Fuel Department in Flight Operations and in-house software experts.

The system was further endorsed when it won a Merit Award at the National Best Quality Software for Innovations in Information Technology. The system monitors emissions throughout a flight and uploads data into the system, directly from the aircraft.

SriLankan Catering won two prestigious Mercury Awards in the global travel catering industry, presented by the International Travel Catering Association (ICTA) for the airline's innovative food waste sterilisation and environment conservation program.

SriLankan Catering bagged the National Energy Efficiency Gold Award for its operational level environmental goals and practices.

"SriLankan Airlines also meets stringent international noise standards and is constantly evaluating noise levels according to relevant requirements and operating limitations stipulated by aviation authorities.

With the on-going re-fleeting with newer aircraft, the airline's noise footprint will be reduced in the future", a spokesman for the airline said.