Our Progress – Reducing our Impacts

Our operation is wide and diverse. We operate our 24/7 safety critical services from three main sites as well as at control towers at many major airports, and we have a nationwide network of communications, navigation and radar facilities at more than 100 remote sites.

Reducing energy and water consumption, reducing waste and increasing reuse and recycling will all help to save money, reduce our direct carbon footprint and preserve natural resources. We are constantly looking to find better ways of doing more with less.

Energy

Our direct carbon emissions relate mostly to the fuel and energy we use in operating our air traffic control facilities and infrastructure. Here, powering our systems, technology and infrastructure makes us a major consumer of energy. This is therefore the largest part of our estate carbon footprint and where the biggest benefits can be derived.

Our overall energy consumption across the NATS UK estate is down by 29% in absolute terms since 2006, enough to power 1800 family homes each year (based on the assumption that an average medium house uses 19,800 kWh in electricity and gas a year). These savings have been achieved through measures such as:

• Investing in energy efficient facilities (our new Prestwick and Training centres) and the associated decommissioning of ageing infrastructure
• Optimising building management systems to ensure that lighting, heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems operate as efficiently as possible
• Replacing end-of-life equipment with more efficient lower energy, lower carbon models
• Zero maintenance systems at remote sites to reduce our business travel footprint.

The improvements we have made have reduced NATS energy carbon footprint by 16,000 tonnes of CO2 per year and have led directly to cost savings for the business, with the reductions in energy consumption (electricity, gas and oil) saving £3.3m a year, and £14m cumulatively since 2006 (based on NATS current electricity, gas and oil prices).

Given our high energy use, we have been exploring whether renewable energy sources could help lower the carbon intensity of our operations, while providing energy security for NATS. Could we generate renewable power at our sites? Since 2008 NATS has periodically reviewed all available renewable technologies and their potential for use across the NATS estate, including our remote communications and navigations sites. The results showed that while there are many feasible renewable projects, the return on investment was borderline compared to conventional low carbon technologies which offered larger carbon savings potential. A mixture of these solid low carbon engineering technologies and small scale renewable projects now feature in our investment plans.

In the last year a number of these have progressed into implementation:

• In collaboration with our long term suppliers in Scotland, Ness Engineering Ltd and Balfour Beatty Engineering Services we have installed a raft of low energy and renewable energy solutions across our remote sites, including the installation of a Biomass wood pellet boiler heating system at our Stornoway Radar station. These microgeneration units dramatically reduce our carbon footprint and energy costs. A similar project is underway at our Glasgow Air Traffic Control Tower, and further sites are currently being assessed for a wider role out of this solution. Other savings have been delivered from the installation of LED lighting at 15 of our Scottish remote sites, replacing inefficient conventional lighting.
• Upgrades to the air conditioning system at our major Swanwick Air Traffic Control Centre have led to the implementation of energy efficient chillers, which are expected to save c.600 tonnes of carbon annually. Further low carbon engineering solutions to reduce the consumption of our plant and technical equipment are in project definition stage.
• The installation of a photovoltaic (PV) array at one of our southern radar stations is helping to reduce the energy consumption from the grid. The feasibility to extend PV implementation across more remote sites is underway.

We continue to work towards a voluntary target to reduce energy consumption by 10% by the end of this year, compared to a 2011 baseline. Achieving this target remains a significant challenge as a number of projects delivering low carbon engineering solutions have been delayed, and having already delivered a 29% absolute reduction in energy consumption our opportunities for improvement are becoming fewer and smaller.

Water

Our consolidation into just 3 main sites with fewer people has dramatically reduced our water consumption. Along with a range of local measures to save water, our overall consumption is down by a massive 50% since 2006 (45% this time last year). We are saving 38 million litres of water per year compared to 2006, enough to fill 15 Olympic swimming pools (based on 1 Olympic swimming pool requiring 2.5 million litres of water). Increased metering, further building consolidation and the trial of new solutions continue to drive consumption down, for example at our Prestwick Air Traffic Control Centre these measure have helped to reduce site consumption by over 20% between 2012 and 2013 (based on calendar year).

Waste and Recycling

We continue to reduce the amount of waste we send to landfill whilst continuing our work to increase the proportion being recycled. In the last financial year 55% of our waste was recycled, 41% went to ‘waste to energy’ plants and just 4% to landfill. These figures are based on our three main sites in the UK: Prestwick and Swanwick Operational Centres, and our main Corporate and Technical Centre headquarters.

These results represent mixed outcomes; the proportion of waste recycled has reduced from 69% in 2012 to 55% in the last year as a result of the completion of a number of major projects, which had contributed to the previous year’s high recycling rate. For example, with the new Prestwick Centre in operation, its predecessor Atlantic House building was being decommissioned and demolished throughout 2012. The scale of the task was immense given the amount of equipment and documentation built up over 40 years of operation. Large volumes of equipment and materials were recovered, recycled or reused. Overall, a 92% recycling rate was achieved on this project, demonstrating how our supply chain practices can deliver good environmental outcomes, but at the same time helping to explain the drop in recycling levels.

However, the proportion of waste to landfill has reduced from 11% in 2012 to just 4% in the last financial year. Similarly, the significant reduction in major decommissioning and refurbishment projects has helped reduce NATS overall waste tonnage (including recyclable and non-recyclable materials) by 40%. In the coming year NATS are planning re-new and redouble efforts to reduce waste at source and improve the ratio of waste that is recycled.