The Payoffs of Sustainable Design

July 23, 2014
Airports that embrace sustainable design quickly reap the benefits of both reduced environmental impacts and lower operating costs.

It would be hard to overstate the importance of airports to the U.S. economy.  They’re a major part of our country’s infrastructure, generate billions of dollars in annual economic activity and support millions of jobs. 

According to a 2012 economic impact study released by Airports Council International-North America, U.S. commercial airports support nearly 10.5 million jobs, create annual payrolls totaling $365 billion and produce an annual output of $1.2 trillion.

With America’s commercial airports accounting for more than 8 percent of our national GDP, it’s time to take a deeper look at the developments and issues transforming the aviation industry.

“Green” building continues to be a national trend.  Many airport executives are demanding innovative terminals and other facilities that maximize efficiency, customer friendliness and sustainability.

Airports that embrace sustainable design quickly reap the benefits of both reduced environmental impacts and lower operating costs. The trick is to deliver sustainability while also keeping the project on time and on budget. To ensure a new terminal meets each airport authority’s  “green” requirements and incorporates sustainability in an innovative, effective way, experienced design teams use several strategies:

1. Holistic approach – The design team looks at the entire site, and the entire project process, to identify opportunities to recycle materials, reduce environmental impacts and incorporate resource-efficient design elements.

2. LEED® and Envision™ expertise – Teams with a depth and breadth of experience working on LEED-certified facilities and Envision-rated civil infrastructure can ensure that the final project meets an owner’s requirements for security, baggage processing and amenities as well as sustainability goals.

3. Building Information Modeling – Although BIM technology itself isn’t new, terminal designers use BIM as a powerful tool for tracking sustainability features, such as amount of recycled materials, and for determining the energy efficiency of individual design elements.

The San Diego International Airport’s (SDIA) 460,000-square-foot Terminal 2 West expansion recently became the world’s first commercial airport terminal to achieve LEED Platinum certification. Its sustainable features include 124,000 square feet of photovoltaic solar panels on the roof; low-flow plumbing fixtures; drought-tolerant landscaping; extensive natural daylighting; and a heavily insulated building envelope.

As lead designer and architect, HNTB helped SDIA carry sustainability through every phase, using BIM to gauge the effectiveness of planned sustainable features and reusing more than 95 percent of the demolished concrete and asphalt from the site. Now open, terminal tenants are part of the green focus, with recycling provisions included in their leases. Terminal 2 is a role model for how future terminals are built and operated.

The potential payoffs of sustainable design include lower utility bills, higher occupancy rates with higher rents and an improved return on investment. These savings allow airport owners to focus more resources on their ultimate goal: an outstanding experience for an ever-increasing number of travelers.

We all want our airports to be as efficient and as inviting as possible. Sustainable terminal design allows us to achieve both those goals.

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Tom Rossbach is the aviation architecture market leader for HNTB. He provides strategic direction for terminal projects within the national aviation market and has nearly 30 years of terminal planning and design experience. Contact him at (312) 446-1800 or [email protected].