The objective of this project is providing an evaluation of sustainability in Changi Airport. By focusing Terminal 3, a lot of discussion and analysis have been done to examine Changi Airport’s sustainability. The project comprises four main components included the description of Changi Airport, identification and discussion of sustainability criteria, analysis of potential impacts and recommended planning tool.
Methodology:
The project takes full advantage of using qualitative and quantitative methods to collect data for the sustainable indicators and support for its arguments. Particularly, to qualitative method, a lot of site observations, evident pictures and interviews with relevant personal included face-to-face communication and email were conducted to examine Changi Airport’s sustainability (Hair et al. 2003, p.74).
Feinstein & Thomas (2002) determined that quantitative method is ‘the adoption from a range of mathematical and statistical techniques used to analyze data and information. The qualitative method was applied to obtain information through Changi Airport website, relevant journal articles and books from both online sources and the National Library Singapore.
Description of Changi Airport:
Singapore Changi Airport has always been known as the best airport in the world (Changi Airport Group (CAG) 2010). Their reputation has been expanded through a lot of annual worldwide awards such as: 2010 Best Green Service Provider – Airport, 2009 Asia’s Leading Airport, 2008 World’s Leading Eco-friendly Airport, 2007 World’s Leading Airport, etc (CAG 2010).
Establishing from 1981, Changi Airport is centrally located in the South East Asian region and is managed by the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) (Caudle 1996). The airport handles more than 80 airlines operating 5,100 weekly scheduled flights flying to about 200 cities in 60 countries (Hui & Wan2003). These big numbers of airlines operations allow the airport welcoming more than 5,000 arrivals and departures every week and over 37 million passengers a year (Hui & Wan 2003).
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Changi Airport Terminal 3 opened on 9 January 2008. This S$1.75 billion terminal comprises 380000 square meter of space and can handle about 22 million passengers a year (NEWASIA Singapore 2010). The roof of the main terminal building is designed with 919 skylights that automatically adjust to sunlight and fill soft natural light into the inside of the terminal (NEWASIA Singapore 2010).
Terminal 3 consists of seven storeys (4 levels above ground and 3 levels below ground) which are considered as a small city with many services and amenities (NEWASIA Singapore 2010). There is a floor-to-ceiling viewing gallery on the fourth floor which allows visitors to enjoy watching the control tower, plane takeoff and land. Natural greenery is the main theme of the terminal’s architectural design (NEWASIA Singapore 2010). The green wall, a 5-storey tall and 300 meter long vertical garden is very good evidence with 4 waterfalls, layers of tropical foliage and sculptured sandstone art walls at the arrival hall (NEWASIA Singapore 2010).
Identification and Discussion of Sustainability Criteria:
Sustainability Criteria is known as the specific standards which organizations follow to achieve their purposes of minimizing at the lowest level of negative impacts and balancing the triple bottom lines (Swarbrooke 1999). To be well-known as a green destination, Changi Airport has put a lot of efforts to obtain sustainability in many ways.
(The table of sustainability indicators can refer to Appendix 1)
Environmental Indicators:
Water Management:
To Changi Airport, water management is very important to reduce as much as possible water consumption and the amount of water that takes from suppliers. They are quite successful to apply Rainwater Harvesting system that allows them to collect storm water for irrigating plants at Changi Airport Nursery and external landscape areas (CAG 2009).
Besides, NEWater (recycled water) is using as the main water source in Changi Airport for multiply purposes such as : irrigation, fire-fighting, sanitation and cooling purposes in place of potable water (CAG 2009).
Another efficiency practice in water conservation is installing flow rate regulators for wash basins in selected areas of the airport to decrease water usage by 66% from 6 liters per minute to 2 liters per minute (CAG 2009). Drinking water is also conserved in term of installing taps with water saving devices such as on-off sensors (CAG 2009).
One of the biggest sources of water usage is from toilets, so that Change Airport Introducing low-flush toilets that recycled water (NEWater) being used for flushing (CAG 2009).
Energy Management:
The airport has saved a lot of energy from its initiatives to improve energy efficiency. A typical practice is using natural lighting in passenger areas by installing double glazed glass and solar shading devices (CAG 2009). These practices allow the nature light to get into the buildings while minimizing heat gained from sunlight at the same time. From then on, it helps to decrease the need for artificial lighting and air conditioning. Inside the buildings, they also set up the efficient lighting system with motion sensors and sensor escalators and travellators (CAG 2009).
The other practices included shutting down escalators and travellators at night and during off-peak hours, turning off peripheral lighting during day time and looking for the best energy-efficient options when replacing their assets and equipments (CAG 2009).
The most remarkable practice is installing a 250kWp photovoltaic system with solar panel modules which cover a rooftop area of about 2,500m². These panel modules generate over 280,000 kWh/year, it is calculated to reduce more than 122,000kg of carbon dioxide per year (CAG 2009).
Waste Management:
The whole idea of sustainable development has been developed very efficiently by Changi Airport through reducing waste generation and increasing the percentage of waste recycled.
The airport has introduced a new creative design of recycling bins which actually depicted an enlarged bottle, a can and a newspaper (CAG 2009). The purpose of these bins is trying to catch people’s attention and encourage them to be more considerate and participate in recycle waste.
With regards to reducing waste generation, the airport’s taxiway pavements are construed by recycled materials and recycled concrete is used to built roadways, drains, pavements and kerbs. Office refurbishments are also used drywall partitions instead of mortar and bricks to minimize waste generation (CAG 2009).These results in cost savings through waste disposal and raw material costs.
Noise Management:
Efficient noise management always challenges for aircraft operators all over the world. The activities such as: re-fuelling, baggage loading, engine maintenance, unloading and re-provisioning of aircraft usually generate a lot of noise which can affect directly to the nearby community.
At Changi Airport, noise management is considered as a very important factor to minimize the possible negative impacts to the community. All airlines and civil aircraft operating in Singapore have to commit to meet the noise standards stipulated by International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)’s guidelines on Balanced Approach to Noise (CAG 2009).
Land use planning is conducted by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), which zones land surrounding Changi Airport for residential use in accordance with international norms on noise levels. Noise studies are conducted regularly to update the noise contours around Changi Airport. The results of these studies are shared with URA for future land-use planning (CAG 2009).
Changi Airport also assigns runways to aircrafts to reduce air traffic and requires all aircraft that departing from Singapore to follow defined routes to avoid flying directly overhead residential areas (CAG 2009). Besides, the airport conducts regular inspections to maintain noise level and detect any abnormal noise activity (CAG 2009).
With a better effort to reduce noise level, Changi Airport Group (2009) cooperates with Singapore Amalgamated Services Co-operative Organization (SASCO), the nearby airside agency to ensure that the impact of noise from their compounds is minimized especially from 12 a.m. to 06 a.m.
Air Quality Control:
To Changi Airport, providing a good environment with best air quality is very important to protect their employee’s health and the local community. There are a lot of useful practices which allow them to minimize as much as possible the amount of carbon dioxide generating from airport vehicles, ground running of aircraft, road traffic, food preparation and air conditioning.
They only use hybrid tractors to sort baggage within Terminal 3 (CAG 2009). The Sky Train system is also used efficiently to transport passengers who make inter-terminal flight connections among Terminal 1, 2 and 3 (CAG, 2009). The system has total of seven stations: two each in Terminal 1 and 2, and three in Terminal 3. This high-speed “people mover system” is powered by electricity and creates zero local emissions (CAG 2009).
Moreover, the airport put their sustainable efforts in term of designing the airfield to maximize the number of rapid exit taxiways and connecting taxiways to limit congestion on the airfield (CAG 2009). This helps cutting down a lot of taxiing time of aircraft and reducing a large amount of engine emissions.
Another good practice which allows reducing a lot of carbon emissions from the airport is applying electronic car park system in 1,700 car park spaces and 130 motorcycle spaces (Changi Airport Singapore (CAS) 2010). With this helpful system, vehicles can quickly find the empty lots and decrease the big amount of carbon emissions from going around the car parks.
The key highlight of terminal 3 is the Green Wall, five-storey high vertical garden. The garden is designed with four cascading waterfalls, a sculptured sandstone art wall and a lot of climbing plants (Hui & Wan 2003). This green practice help creating fresh air, cooling the atmosphere inside the building and saving a large amount of energy consumptions through air conditioners.
Stress Level:
Changi Airport is well-known as one of the best airports all over the world which serves more than 80 airlines operating 5,100 weekly scheduled flights flying to about 200 cities in 60 countries (Hui & Wan2003). These big numbers of airlines operations allow the airport welcoming more than 5,000 arrivals and departures every week and over 37 million passengers a year (Hui & Wan 2003).
The whole airport is about 1,300 hectares with 870 hectares reclaimed from the sea (670 hectares using seafill and 200 hectares using landfill) (CAS 2010). There are more than 230 retails and services stores and about 100 food & beverage establishments here (CAS 2010).
Besides, terminal 3 has an annual handling capacity of 22 million passengers while the total handling capacity of Changi Airport is about 70 million passengers per year (CAS 2010).
Social-cultural Indicators:
Environmental Education:
There are many kinds of sustainable education which is conducted in Changi Airport through environmental exhibitions, campaigns, events, gallery and activities. Some remarkable activities that bring a lot of good green image of Changi Airport are:
Changi Airport Group and IATA launched environmental exhibition between 2 February 2010 and 28 February 2010 to highlight aviation’s commitment to the environment (Changi Airport Group & IATA 2010).
The airport practiced Earth Hour 2010 to raise environmental awareness among its stakeholders (CAS 2010).
Changi Airport cooperates with National Museum of Singapore and Double A Ltd. to promote “Making your own woodblock print with local icons” campaign to use the paper wisely (CAS 2010).
Value of foreign ownership:
The full beneficial ownership of Changi Airport belongs to the government of Singapore.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) is the regulatory authority (Channel Newasia 2009). Within CAAS, there are two entities:
One is in charge in the regulator, promoter and developer of the aviation industry (Channel Newasia 2009).
The corporatized entity is in charge to operate Changi Airport, the airport emergency services and exploit investment opportunities overseas (Channel Newasia 2009).
Locals jobs created through tourism:
Changi Airport is generating about 13,000 jobs for local community (CAS 2010).
Baseline Indicators:
Quality Management:
Changi Airport is known as the world’s most awarded airport with over 350 awards included 28 won in 2009 and 8 won as at May 2010 (CAG 2010). Some remarkable awards are:
2010 Best Green Service Provider – Airport
2009 Asia’s Leading Airport
2008 World’s Leading Airport
2008 World’s Leading Eco-friendly Airport
Potential Impacts of Changi Airport:
Tourism activities can cause a lot of impacts to the triple bottom lines included environment, economic and social-culture (Swarbrooke 1999). Changi Airport is well-known as an essential element in the aviation industry in particular and the whole tourism system (WTS) in general (Weaver & Lawton 2010). Therefore, it cannot ignore both negative and positive impacts from its transportation service to local community.
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Environmental Impacts:
The good side of tourism development in Changi Airport is promoting people’s sustainable awareness and their responsibility in term of environmental conservation (Buckley 2000). There are also many cleaning programmes such as: the Clean Energy Programme Office (CEPO) to protect the attractiveness and green image of the best worldwide eco-friendly airport (Singapore Economic Development Board 2009). Besides, one of the best benefits which Changi Airport has created for the environment is promoting the development of using renewable sources such as: solar energy- 919 skylights, recycled water – the NEWater, etc (Manson 2003).
Together with the positive impact, there are also a lot of negative impacts which Changi Airport generates for the environment. Noise pollution is, for many people, the most obvious form of pollution related mainly to aircraft (Leiper, Braithwaite & Witsel 2008). Besides, its impacts on climate change, people’s health and contributing in depleting the stratospheric ozone layer are the most serious problems (Refer to Appendix 2 for more detail).
Social Impacts:
The development of tourism in Changi Airport has created more job opportunities and higher income to local residents. There are about 13,000 jobs are generated during last few years (CAS 2010). It also results in the development of more and better shopping, transport, the country’s medical facilities, cultural and recreational facilities and communication facilities (Khan et al. 1990). Crowne Plaza Hotel with 5- star rate is a very good example of how good infrastructure has been improved because of tourism development in Changi Airport (CAG 2010). Besides, it can bring locals ‘feeling of pride’ about their world’s best eco-friendly airport and consciousness of keeping the airport clean and attractive (Khan et al. 1990). The image of Singapore as a clean and beautiful city is also emerged to attract more and more tourists (Khan et al. 1990).
On the other hand, the development can cause vulnerability to the community. The difference in wealth between the locals and the tourists may result in the high number in drug abuse, prostitution, and theft and crime rate especially with the setup of gambling facilities at the two integrated resorts (Khan et al. 1990). Many locals complained that they have to pay higher prices for some good and services as well we their rentals for offices and shops were increased because of tourism development (Khan et al. 1990). Obviously, there are a lot of buildings around the Changi Airport area such as: 4 terminals, control tower, Crowne Plaza Hotel, etc. They will definitely cause the visual impact at the end (Weaver & Lawton 2010).
Economic Impacts:
The significant effects of tourism development in Changi Airport expand on the high number of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employment. There are more ten 13,000 job opportunities generated to cater passenger’s demand (CAG 2010). Another important benefit is generating indirect local revenue through the multiplier effect of money and jobs (Heng & Low 1990). Due to the development of the aviation industry, it also cause the stimulation of backward linkages of the other industries, includes agriculture, fisheries and construction (Heng & Low 1990). The full beneficial ownership of Changi Airport belongs to the government of Singapore; thus, it limits the negative impacts from high leakage due to foreign ownership (Channel Newasia 2009). Besides, the strong demand for Singapore dollars due to tourism expansion is resulting in the growth of the price of Singapore’s currency and exchange rate (Heng & Low 1990).
However, the high tourism dependence of Singapore economy in general and Changi Airport in particular can be a big problem. The uncontrollable outside forces such as: natural disasters (Tsunami), SARS and economic crisis will affect seriously to the whole economy of Singapore (Heng & Low 1990).
The aviation activities can cause a lot of problems; however, there still are many offsets that can organize to limit them at the lowest level. Changi Airport is a very successful representative for the aviation industry that owns a lot of initiatives to balance its negative impacts to triple bottom lines (Refer to Appendix 1). Their efforts in sustainable development have been proved through a lot of honor awards such as: the Green Mark Gold in October 2009, the inaugural Best Green Service Provider at the Annual Asian Freight and Supply Chain Awards in 2010 (CAG 2009).
Recommended Planning Tool:
According to Newsome, Moore and Dowling (2002), the best planning tool is one that provides an effective monitoring in the areas with effective outcome, involve visitors and community and lead to sustainability of the resource. There are many tourism planning frameworks, but, the Visitor Impact Management Framework is the most suitable one for Changi Airport (Refer to Appendix 3).
Visitor Impact Management (VIM) Framework:
To Changi Airport, applying the VIM planning framework to ensure visitor impacts at acceptable levels seems a good idea which allows them to enhance visitors’ benefit and achieve their purpose in excellent service: “We are the best in our business” (CAG 2010).
Based on eight basic steps, the VIM framework can lead the managers not only focusing on reviewing existing data and management objectives, through selecting indicators and standards and using these to identify unacceptable impacts, but also helping them to indentify causes and appropriate management strategies (Newsome et al 2002).
The purpose of steps1 and 2 is reviewing the organization’s existing objectives, legislation, policies, pervious research and other data to identify problems. In these stages, Changi Airport can recognize the need for clear objectives (excellent service provider), better understanding the needs and wants from passengers and identify current problems within the process of organizing.
The next steps (steps 3 and 4) are selecting key impact indicators and standards for the whole terminal 3. Noise management, air quality control and passenger satisfaction seems to the best indicators that need to be highlighted for taking care of local community and passengers (Refer to Appendix 1). The following indicators such as: waste management, energy consumption, water quality control and quality management will be also useful to providing excellent service in the aviation industry.
After collecting enough data, the comparison between standards and existing conditions will necessary to examine whether it exceed the acceptable level or at that level. For instance, the desired standard for passenger satisfaction at Changi Airport was 94 % while passenger rates their satisfaction at lower or higher standard (CAG 2010). To maintain the service standard at a high level, monitoring programmers have been established with certain criteria. The purpose of this practice is making sure that they can win annual “Best Worldwide Airport” award (CAG 2010). Therefore, this award is used as a measuring method to ensure their standard of passenger satisfaction.
If their actual satisfaction level is below the desired standard, the Changi Airport Group will take action to identify probable causes of decreasing in passenger satisfaction level (Step 6) (CAG 2010). Some possible problems might be low in service delivery, lack of initiative in operation, etc (Tian-Cole & Cromption 2003).
From then on, the suitable planning and strategies are provided and implemented to get over limitations and enhance in service delivery (Steps 7 and 8). The ‘Be a Changi Millionaire’ Draw, which ‘kicked off’ monthly from1 June 2010 to choose the most lucky passenger who shopped at Changi Airport, is a very good evidence (CAG 2010). This activity is a very creative idea to promote the airport’s products and its wonderful service at the same time. Through this activity, passengers will be very happy and their satisfaction level will increase at the end.
Limitation of the report:
The report focuses mainly on Terminal 3 to collect data for the sustainable indicators. Thus, the quality of information collected might not be representative for the whole Changi Airport included: Terminal 1 and 2. Besides, there are some data and information cannot be gathered because the organization is outsourced its departments and some private information cannot be leaked out.
The paper only mentions about environmental impact, one important component in the triple bottom lines, thus, it is lack of convincing evidences to prove that the balance among triple bottom lines have been done in Changi Airport.
Conclusion:
The whole project provides a good understanding how Changi Airport can create its image and reputation as the best airport in the world. Especially, in term of sustainability, there are a lot of efforts have been done to take care of environment and local community. However, it cannot avoid the negative impacts which the aviation industry’s member causes for the environment. These problems are able to offset by taking full advantages of using management frameworks and planning tool such as: the VIM frameworks.
With this research, it is obvious that Singapore Changi Airport is meritorious to be known as the best green airport all over the world. In the future, it can strongly believe that Changi Airport will be more conscious about the environment with more green planning and strategies to maintain its reputation as well as develop as a green icon of sustainability.
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