fairport-Glossar

the fairport is the name of Stuttgart Airport’s sustainability strategy. Behind this lies our ambition to remain one of the most efficient and sustainable airports in Europe.

STRzero is the name of the climate strategy adopted by Baden-Württemberg’s regional airport.

When it comes to the climate, emissions refer to the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. These emissions can be divided into “scopes”:

• Scopes 1 and 2 include emissions that arise directly at the airport or through purchased energy, such as fuel consumption by the Stuttgart Airport vehicle fleet. The regional airport has a direct influence here.
• Scope 3 includes emissions generated by third parties, such as energy consumption by tenants in airport buildings. The airport can only intervene indirectly here.
  

The landing and take-off cycle, or LTO cycle for short, has been established as an international standard by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). It helps to calculate local traffic-related emissions. This refers to all aircraft movements below 3 thousand feet (just under 1 thousand metres) altitude around the airport. The cycle is divided into the following phases: landing, taxiing, departure, re-taxiing, take-off and climb. Fuel consumption is determined for each phase in order to calculate the greenhouse gases produced.

TOC stands for Total Organic Carbon – it indicates the proportion of organic carbon in a sample. This makes it possible, for example, to determine how heavily water is contaminated with foreign substances.

At the airport, de-icing agents are used on aircraft and surfaces in winter. This contains carbon, but it is easily biodegradable. The contaminated water is therefore pre-treated in a suspended bed reactor with the help of bacteria. It can then either be disposed of at municipal sewage treatment plants or, if suitable, discharged into surrounding waters. An online measurement system checks whether the water quality is good enough: the TOC value must be below a certain limit.

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is a gaseous compound consisting of carbon and oxygen. It occurs naturally in the atmosphere, but also contributes to the greenhouse effect. CO₂ is produced, for example, during respiration and when hydrocarbons from petrol, natural gas or kerosene are burned.

CO₂ emissions are produced when materials such as oil, coal or wood are burned. This releases carbon dioxide, which accumulates in the atmosphere. Stuttgart Airport not only records CO₂, but also all other greenhouse gas emissions it causes. They are converted into CO₂ equivalents (CO₂e).

This means that the amount of a greenhouse gas is converted into the corresponding amount of CO₂ that has the same climate impact.

Greenhouse gases are gases such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons and methane. They occur both naturally and as a result of human activities. If their concentration increases, this leads to global warming. At airports, these gases are mainly produced by the combustion of fuels in vehicle engines and aircraft engines.

Net greenhouse gas neutral or “net zero” means that a balance is achieved between greenhouse gas emissions and their removal from the atmosphere.

Important: emissions should primarily be avoided or reduced. Only where this is not technically feasible may they be neutralised – i.e. the same amount of CO₂ must be removed from the atmosphere as was emitted.

Ultrafine particles are produced during combustion processes at very high temperatures – for example, when smoking tobacco, burning candles or in engines such as aircraft engines. They occur in the air around the airport as complex mixtures in varying concentrations.

A flight movement is the take-off or landing of an aircraft.

The sound pressure level measures the strength of a sound event.

The continuous sound level helps to evaluate noises whose volume changes over a period of time or is interrupted by pauses. The individual level values are combined into a comparative value. This value takes into account the intensity, duration and frequency of individual sound events.

Aircraft noise reports

The noise protection area describes the classification of the immediate surroundings of a commercial airport in accordance with the German Aircraft Noise Act. There are:

• Daytime protection zone 1: continuous noise level above 65 dB(A)
• Daytime protection zone 2: continuous noise level between 60 and 65 dB(A)
• Night-time protection zone: continuous noise level from 55 dB(A) and at least 6 maximum levels above 57 dB(A)
  

Decibel (dB) is a unit of measurement for acoustic measurements such as sound pressure level. The A in dB(A) stands for the A-weighting filter. This A rating takes into account how humans perceive different sound frequencies at different volumes and adjusts the measured values accordingly.

The maximum sound level is the highest sound pressure of a single aircraft noise event. When an aircraft flies overhead, the sound pressure level initially rises, reaches its maximum value at the shortest distance from the measuring microphone and then drops again. The maximum noise level is not calculated, but is displayed directly as a peak value during measurement.

The microphones at the outdoor measuring stations record all ambient noise around the clock. These noises are stored as a sound level-time curve.

Potential aircraft noise events are defined as all recordings with a maximum sound level above 60 dB(A) lasting between 5 and 90 s. To ensure that the noise is indeed aircraft noise, the recordings are compared with the radar tracks of the aircraft. Only if an aircraft is in the vicinity of the measuring point at the same time is the noise classified as aircraft noise. This rules out other sources of noise such as church bells or construction sites as the cause of the event.