A Critical Review Of Heathrow Airport’s Sustainability Reporting

Running head: A CRITICAL REVIEW OF HEATHROW AIRPORT’S SUSTAINABILITY
REPORTING
A Critical Review of Heathrow Airport’s Sustainability Reporting
Student’s name
University
Author’s note

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A CRITICAL REVIEW OF HEATHROW AIRPORT’S SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING
Executive summary
Non-financial reporting such as CSR and sustainability reporting is a relatively new trend
in the corporate sector across the world. The trend of corporate sustainability reporting was
initiated around the 1980s with the practice of environmental reporting. The initiative was
primarily taken up by large scale chemical companies to improve their brand image pertaining to
pollution issues. Further, a few small and medium scale enterprises carried on with the
environmental reporting, who were seriously engaged and committed to advanced environment
management systems. However, the tobacco industry was much more involved in the reporting
process among the entire corporate sector in an attempt to attract more investors in the wake of
ethical investigation. Gradually with the changing time, all sorts of corporate enterprises, both
MNCs and SMEs started to take part in voluntary disclosure of their non-financial performances.
Such reports encompass heir CSR activities, sustainability concerns and practices, as well as
ESG goals. However, often corporates face criticism regarding their disclosure practices, which
claim that their reports lack substantive data. Also, some receive the allegation that their
sustainability report is more of a glossy marketing brochure, hiding the flaws in sustainability
performance. Therefore, it is commonly understood that an acceptable sustainability report has to
follow certain viable guidelines. In the present report, a case study of Heathrow Airport’s
sustainability report has been taken up to review whether it qualifies as an acceptable report or
not.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Brief Overview of Heathrow Airport..............................................................................................4
Sustainability Concerns at Heathrow Airport..................................................................................5
Heathrow Sustainability Reporting 2018.........................................................................................7
Key Stakeholders.........................................................................................................................7
Organizational values..................................................................................................................7
Sustainability Strategy: Heathrow 2.0.........................................................................................8
A great place to work...............................................................................................................8
A great place to live.................................................................................................................9
A thriving sustainable economy..............................................................................................9
A world worth travelling.......................................................................................................10
Progress Update for 2018..........................................................................................................11
Compliance to GRI Universal Standards.......................................................................................11
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................13
References......................................................................................................................................14

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Introduction
Sustainability reporting is a practice that organizations adopt to publish or disclose their
information on the social and environmental performance, along with their governance related
procedure (ESG goals) to manage the sustainable practices and policies. This practice of
sustainability reporting does not include report generation from the collected data, rather it
involves their process of improving and internalizing the organization’s commitment to
sustainable development, so as to demonstrate the practice to the both the external and internal
stakeholder (Stacchezzini et al. 2016)
A proper form of CSR and sustainability reporting, which is recognized and popularized
in the recent times, has only emerged in the last twenty years (Bristow 2018). And more and
more corporate organizations are joining the trend over the time. Although different enterprises
have different intentions and techniques to publish their non-financial information such as CSR
and sustainability management policies, the core intention can be described behind the practice is
to maintain transparency and accountability, engaging stakeholders (Ehnert et al. 2016)
The Benefit of sustainability reporting nonetheless includes an improved corporate
reputation that in turn help build credibility, gaining shareholders’ trust, building consumers’
confidence, increase innovation and also, improve risk management systems. To achieve these
goals, an organization has to follow certain reliable and acceptable criteria and disclose their
information accordingly (De Villiers, Rouse and Kerr 2016).
There is no single standard to construct an accurate sustainability report. However, there
are certain global organizations and standards that organizations can adopt to measure and

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improve their sustainability performance, monitoring and reporting of the same. The Global
Reporting Initiative is one of such standard that provides an internationally acknowledged
guideline to assess the sustainability performance. The ACCA award schemes and rankings as
well as CDP reporting also provide similar guidelines. Nevertheless, there are several
sustainability reporting frameworks and indices that is being used for sustainability reporting of
the various organizations. Hence, critically reviewing a sustainability report of a particular
organizations needs to include the examination of its purpose, along with a clear assessment of
its ESG dimensions of its business informing strategy (Orsato et al. 2015).
In the light of these consideration, the present report attempts to construct a critical
account of a sample sustainability report and thereby construing its merit and viability. The case
study taken for this very purpose is the sustainability reporting of the Heathrow Airport. The
report will first provide a brief background of Heathrow Airport, followed by an exploration of
its ESG dimensions. Next, the report will assess how well the report has followed globally
renowned guidelines and standards to disclose their sustainability performance. Further, the
report will examine the different elements of the report to understand how far the organization
has been successful to achieve the sustainable development goals that it has undertaken.
Brief Overview of Heathrow Airport
Heathrow airport, also known as London Heathrow (IATA Code: LHR; ICAO Code:
EGLL) is one of the premiere airports of the world, and one of the major international airport of
the United Kingdom. Located in 23 km west of London, the capital of the UK, Heathrow is
known to be the busiest airport in Europe in terms of passenger traffic, and the second busiest
airport in the world in terms of international passenger traffic. Also, in terms of the total

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passenger traffic, it is the seventh busiest airport in the world. The facility originated back in
1929 as a small airfield known as Great West Aerodrome. The development and remodeling of
the facility to transform it into a full-scale airport started in 1944. By the end of the World War
II, the UK Government developed the facility as a civil airport and opened it to the public on 25th
of March 1946, named as London Airport. Later in 1966, it was renamed Heathrow Airport.
Currently, Heathrow airport is used by more than 80 airlines, flying to more than 184
destinations across 84 countries. It consists of 4 passenger terminals and one cargo terminal,
along with public facilities like inter-terminal transport, access roads, refreshment areas, first-aid
and medical assistance, counselling centers as well as multi-faith prayer room and chaplains of
different faith such as Anglican, Catholic, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Free Church (Griggs
and Howarth 2016).
In their strategic report, Heathrow states that the central vision of the organization is to
provide the passengers with the best airport service in the world. They also suggest that their
central purpose or mission is to “Make every journey better”. With the help of three runways, the
organizations aim to improve the UK’s connectivity with the rest of the world, as well as to
maintain their role as a chief facilitator of the improvement of the economic growth. The
organization has a strategic competitive advantage over its competitors for being Europe’s hub of
choice and they attempt to maintain that status through their unique service proposition.
Moreover, the organization specifies that the central value of the enterprises are focused on the
airlines, colleagues, communities and investors (Heathrow.com).

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Sustainability Concerns at Heathrow Airport
The aviation industry has been a prominent focus for environmental concerns, climate
change, resource depletion, global warming, pollution as well as human rights violation (Daley,
Dimitriou and Thomas 2016). To respond to these challenges, Heathrow airport, along with
many other major aviation enterprises, has taken up the task of sustainability reporting to
disclose their approach and activity to portray themselves as a socially responsible enterprises,
operating to achieve an overall well-being of the society (Karaman, Kilic and Uyar 2018). In
particular, the sustainability report of Heathrow airport tries to present themselves as accountable
and transparent in their response to social as well as environmental concerns, rather than working
for economic growth alone. Moreover, as a part of the aviation industry, Heathrow airport is
directly connected to human life and the environment for its inevitable impact on them. These
concerns further deepen with respect to its fuel consumption, noise pollution, increasing
environmental temperature and hazardous waste generation. Moreover, due to its international
nature, the impacts are not limited to its domestic territory, but also extend to foreign
environments. Thus, it could add to the problem of global climate change, if not managed
carefully and responsibly. On the other hand, as a major player in cargo and passenger transport
sector, along with its role in tourism industry, Heathrow has a significant role in the economic
growth of the developing and weaker economies (de Grosbois 2016).
In their sustainability report, Heathrow airport has duly taken these aspects into
consideration. Consequently, they have aligned their sustainability goals with the improvement
and positive transformation of the aviation industry into a more environment-friendly future. The
particular report in question, i.e. the sustainability report of Heathrow airport for the year 2018 is
a disclosure of their past activities and achievement to fulfill their commitments, along with an

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overview of their future plans of expansion and improvement. Besides, to meet with the social
and environmental challenges as a part of the aviation industry, the organization also discloses in
their website their strategy to achieve the designated goals and targets to ensure sustainability in
their policies and practices (Kılkış and Kılkış 2016).
Heathrow Sustainability Reporting 2018
Key Stakeholders
 Passengers
 Colleagues
 Local communities
 Investors
 Team Heathrow partners (other businesses working at Heathrow),
 Suppliers and regulators.
 Local authorities
 Organizations and selected government officials working on sustainable business
concerns. (Heathrow.com 2019)
Organizational values
As has been mentioned earlier, the vision of the organization is to “To deliver the best
airport service in the world” and their central purpose is to make every journey better. To this
end, the organization lays out a structural and systematic design in terms of its organizational
values that will help them achieve the purpose. The values are embedded into their
responsibilities pertaining to the following aspect:

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 Keeping everyone safe
 Treating everyone with respect
 Giving excellent service
 Working together
 Doing the right thing
 Improving every day (Heathrow.com 2019)
Sustainability Strategy: Heathrow 2.0
The central theme of Heathrow’s sustainability reporting revolves around the proposed
expansion of the airport. In their sustainability report, the organization states their sustainability
strategy by the name ‘Heathrow 2.0’, which aims to respond to the negative impacts of the
aviation industry such as global warming, climate change and noise pollution. The strategic
vision of Heathrow 2.0 is to posit sustainability at the core of the expansion of Heathrow and all
their operations. The enterprise claim that Heathrow 2.0 an elaborate and deep plan for
sustainable development which will be involving both the external internal stakeholders, focused
on its airlines, colleagues, communities and investors. The strategy includes four central visions
along with related flagship goals, which are as following (Heathrow.com 2019):
A great place to work
As a socially responsible business enterprise, Heathrow airport resolves to create more
job opportunities and improving professional skills among its community. To this end,
the organization adopts two flagship goals.
i) By 2030, the organization attempts to create 10000 new apprenticeships to help
people develop sustainable and skilled careers.

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ii) In order to become a desired place to work, Heathrow tries to reflect local
diversity at every level of the organization by the year 2025 so that local people
can find suitable and sustainable employment, through which they can fulfill their
true potential (Heathrow.com 2019).
A great place to live
Heathrow tries to improve the environmental and social health of the surrounding locality
to make it a suitable habitat with improved quality of life. It also makes it a point to
support local communities in their economic and social development. The flagship goals
in this regard are (Heathrow.com 2019):
i) Complying to their voluntary Quiet Night Charter, the airport will try to reduce
the number of flights to half on non-disrupted days at least that function late after
11:30pm by 2022.
ii) Creating airside ultra-low emissions zone by 2025 to improve quality of life
through cleaner air.
iii) To reduce the congestion on the road, the airport will no longer support any
airport-related cars and 50% airport passenger journeys will be made by public
and sustainable transport by 2030 (Heathrow.com 2019).
A thriving sustainable economy
As the UK and Europe’s choice of hub airport, Heathrow plays a significant role to help
the country’s economy thrive and prosper. With the proposed expansion, the
organizations aims to further its assistance to the national economy by providing
improved connections and better opportunities. The flagship goal resolves
(Heathrow.com 2019):

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i) To improve the network spread across the largest 100 cities and towns through
Heathrow to strengthen the British economy by 2030.
ii) To publish a clear roadmap specifying the action plans and strategies that helps
transition Heathrow’s supply chain employees working at the Airport to receive
the standard London Living Wage (Heathrow.com 2019).
A world worth travelling
To demonstrate its environmental concerns, Heathrow articulates its responsibilities and
vision for contributing to the development of the world environment. To this end, they
propose (Heathrow.com 2019)
i) To transform itself into a carbon neutral to protect the world from climate change
and global warming
ii) To use renewable electricity for all its operations in order to transform themselves
into a zero carbon airport from April 2017.
iii) To establish a Centre of Excellence for sustainability at airports and in the broader
aviation sector (Heathrow.com 2019)

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Progress Update for 2018
(Source: Heathrow.com 2019)
Compliance to GRI Universal Standards
According to the GRI standards, a successful sustainability report must review the
enterprise’s operation focusing on its social, economic and environmental impacts. Known as the
Triple Bottom Line (TBL) approach, the core focus areas stipulates the complying organizations
to disclose their ESG design, i.e. environmental, social and governance concerns, along with the
targeted goals.
Following the GRI standards, sustainability report of Heathrow airport furnishes a
detailed design of their ESG operation, maintaining the TBL approach. As per the GRI Universal

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standard 101, the report presents their specific reporting principle to set out the defining report
content. The organization states that their sustainability strategy, i.e. Heathrow 2.0 is the guiding
force for all of their operations and reporting pertaining to sustainable development. The central
theme of the reporting refers to the proposed expansion, while the vision statement shapes the
sustainability practices of the organization.
Further, as per the GRI standard 102, the report discloses the contextual information
about the organization, furnishing the report with the details of the company profile,
organizational ethics and values, business strategy, sustainability strategy, stakeholder
engagement practices and governance. As is the case for Heathrow’s sustainability report, the
first 4 pages contain all these specific details, leading to their explanation in the following
sections.
Continuing with the GRI topic specific standards to report the organization’s impact on
economy, society and the environment, the report adheres to the stipulation of specifying its
impact areas. To elucidate, the report explains Heathrow’s role as an aviation enterprise and
points out its responsibilities of promoting economic development, job creation, employee
development, reducing noise pollution, promoting the use of recyclable energy and fuel,
incorporating diversity and inclusion in the workforce in their governance as well as eliminating
discrimination and bias from the governance (Globalreporting.org).
The first half of the report, up to page 53, portrays general compliance to the GRI
standards 100 series by providing a brief overview of their sustainability approach and the
inherent values and guidelines. It also contains selected operational highlights and case studies to
corroborate their sustainability strategy. The rest of the report presents a detailed account of their

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topical performances against individual goals and targets. It also includes specific milestones to
show their progress in key areas such as community development, preservation of environment,
reducing carbon footprint, governance etc. This part maintains its adherence to selected topic-
specific standards of GRI, ranging from 200 to 400 series (Heathrow.com 2019).
Conclusion
The sustainability report of Heathrow airport is essentially a progress update of the
central vision of sustainability as well as an action plan for the upcoming years. As per the
fundamental understanding of sustainability reporting practices, the reporting practice of
Heathrow comprehensibly fares well in terms of adherence to international standards. The
information shared in the report are reliable and authentic. Moreover, the detailed description of
topic-based performances depict a clear design of its TBL approach of reporting. It does address
all the stakeholders through the disclosure, thus engaging all the relevant stakeholders
successfully. Moreover, the intention of achieving accountability and transparency through the
disclosure is also reflected in the preparation and presentation of the report. Therefore, it can be
concluded that the sustainability report of the Heathrow portrays a successful and meaningful
practice of sustainability reporting as it adheres to all the necessary guidelines and standards.

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