Airport Owners Raise Red Flag On 'Green' Movement Lapse

By Tudor Hampton

As the "green" building movement flourishes and public pressure for it continues to mount, more owners are looking for environmental ratings that would give a nod to non-buildings, which many say have been left out.

While today's certification programs apply only to buildings, airport owners want ratings to include runways, access roads, lighting vaults, fuel tanks and other facilities. "There is a lot of interest," said Richard Marchi, a senior advisor for the North American division of Airports Council International.

Standards may come soon. Members of the U.S. Green Building Council, which certifies buildings under its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program, are in early talks with ACI-NA to develop guidelines that could lead to a new certification program. Current ratings apply to terminals and occupied buildings - the new Terminal A at Boston's Logan Airport was the world's first to receive certification last month - but they don't yet address other airport infrastructure.

In Chicago, public officials took a step forward when planning a major realignment of runways at O'Hare International Airport, now in its first year of construction. The $6.6-billion program, part of a $15-billion master plan to expand the airport over 20 years, has its own rating scheme outlined in an 84-page document called the Sustainable Design Manual. "Because there was nothing, we developed our own," said Rosemarie S. Andolino, the program's executive director, who commissioned it.

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The O'Hare manual is based largely on LEED but goes a step further. "While LEED is starting to branch out into other areas, there is still very little associated with civil work," said Ted J. Woosley, vice president of Landrum & Brown, an environmental planner that contributed. He said it is "our attempt to create a LEED program for horizontal construction."

Kitty Friedheim, a consultant and former Chicago aviation official who also contributed, said the O'Hare manual "is breaking new ground" because other airports' green efforts are "more on the terminal side." It outlines such things as running construction equipment on clean fuels, using regional materials and saving water. Like LEED, it offers points at varying weights. For example, planting native grasses, which need less water, can earn two points; building energy-efficient facilities can earn up to 10 points.

Coming up with new ratings requires changing some old ones. Many existing guidelines "don't work well at an airport," notes Marchi. While LEED gives credit for buildings near dense populations, at airports "that would be inappropriate because you are trying to avoid built-up areas," he said. But having mass transit nearby, which earns points for buildings, also works for airports, said Andolino. Lighting is another issue. Owners want more credit for such things as light-emitting diodes on runways because they use less energy, give off less heat and cost less to maintain than other sources.

Andolino's team plans this month to begin evaluating and "rating" the construction in place at O'Hare. "We know it will evolve over time," she said.

This article originally appeared in the August 14 issue of Engineering News-Record