Social and Environmental Impacts of Changi Airport

The paper provides an overview of the Changi Airport that is located in Singapore. It provides discussion of the social and the environmental impacts on the surrounding community. The primary purpose is to focus on the factors that affect the local community due to the impacts of the airport. What it provides with the solutions of these factors could be avoided or reduced.

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Aviation Management

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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
Overview of the airport...............................................................................................................................2
Discussion of the social impact on the surrounding community..................................................................2
Discussion of the environmental impacts on the surrounding community...................................................3
Socio-economic management of airport......................................................................................................4
Environmental Management of airport........................................................................................................4
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................5
References...................................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
The paper provides an overview of the Changi Airport that is located in Singapore. It provides
discussion of the social and the environmental impacts on the surrounding community. The
primary purpose is to focus on the factors that affect the local community due to the impacts of
the airport. What it provides with the solutions of these factors could be avoided or reduced. The
airports are dealing with the various social and environmental impacts due to which the
surrounding community has to suffer. Thus it becomes important for the airports to implement
certain measures that will help to deal with all these issues.
Overview of the airport
Changi Airport is considered to be one of the largest transportation hubs in Southeast Asia and a
major civilian airport in Singapore. It is located at the eastern end of Singapore in Changi around
20 kilometers northeast. Since 2013 for the sixth consecutive year Skytrax rated it as the Best
Airport in the world (Massey Stream: Log in to the site. 2018). Also, it is considered one of the
busiest airport in the world by cargo traffic and international passengers. The operations of the
airport are executed by the Changi Airport Group, and it is determined to be the home base of
BOC Aviation, Jetstar Asia Airways, Scoot, SilkAir, Singapore Airlines Cargo and Singapore
Airlines (D’Alfonso, Jiang & Bracaglia, 2015).
Discussion of the social impact on the surrounding community
The airport privatization and commercialization simply mean that the airports are the mode of
businesses. As businesses are taken into account airports, have some impacts on the development
of the economic and social factors of the nation and the regions (Collins & Cooper, 2017). The
impact of the airport on the surrounding community needs to be analyzed properly as it
influences the behavior and the everyday life processes of the people concerned. Moreover, it
needs to be understood that the airport has adopted several strategies to go green for the entire
community concerned throughout the airport. One of the important initiatives taken by the
airport authority is the implantation of the fully electric fleet of baggage handling tractors that
are effectively used at Terminal 4(T4), and this was done in a bid for reducing the emissions of
the concerned greenhouse gases as well as the carbon footprint. This particular initiative will

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help in evaluating the effectiveness of the surroundings throughout the concerned community
and will enhance the brand image of the firm throughout the concerned market areas.
Moreover, the rise of the electric vehicles is seen to be increasing throughout different parts of
the world. To bring out the desired change, the adaptation of the crucial measures needs to be,
and cooperation from the government authorizes are of great importance. The use of the
environment-friendly machines has significantly generated great impact on the community and
the machines effectively digested over 250 tonnes of the food waste last year that was equal to
the weight of near about A320 planes (Chang & Yeh, 2016). Now, Changi Airport has been
considered to be the largest adopter of the food waste digesters within Singapore having a total
of 11 machines installed across four concerned terminals (Diedrich & Aswani, 2016). Moreover,
the initiative towards the reduction of the greenhouse gases will help in enhancing the overall
living conditions for the entire community which will further facilitate the execution of the work
processes by the organization (Wolfe et al., 2014). It is a matter of the fact that the airport has
achieved level three of the airport carbon accreditation by mapping the carbon footprint (Koç &
Durmaz, 2015). It becomes very important for the airport authorities to manage the execution of
the work processes by safeguarding the surrounding community and the initiative towards the
reduction of the carbon emission gasses will help in promoting the overall effectiveness
throughout the surrounding community.
Discussion of the environmental impacts on the surrounding community
It can be seen that airports significantly affects the development of urban cities and on the
environment, it has a negative impact. The environmental impacts of the Changi airport generate
from various construction projects or airport access, airline operations and airport operations in
the landslides of an airport. It is observed that Changi airport have a significant impact on the
global environment due to climatic change. Noise seems to be the main factor at the local level
for the past 20 years because of the land use planning, ecosystems, wastewater management,
availability of the resources and air emission on the surrounding communities (Upham, Thomas,
Gillingwater & Raper, 2003). International aviation worldwide is determined to be the increasing
source of greenhouse gas emissions. Another issue is the degradation of the surrounding air
quality as it comprises of carbon dioxide, sulfur oxide, particulate matter, hydrocarbons, carbon
monoxide and oxides of nitrogen. Effluents and wastewater is another problem that requires

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proper management in avoiding the spread of pollution in the surrounding community. In the
Changi Airport, the waste that is produced comes from the flight operations and terminals,
provisions, and constructions of the infrastructure and handling maintenance (Kesgin, 2006).
The water run-offs in Changi airport is the major source of pollution as they comprise the high
level of toxic and chemical substances. Along with the air emissions and wastewater in the
Changi Airport includes the production of the considerable amount of the solid waste that
requires to be managed. It is determined that global warming leads to change in the hydrological
cycle that could result in the alteration in the run-offs and pattern of participation (Franssen, Van
Wiechen, Nagelkerke & Lebret, 2004). This factors could put an impact on the demand and
availability of water. Ultimately the availability of the water could become an issue for Changi
airport.
On the other hand, the waste is generated from the aircraft catering, maintenance activities,
airfield operations, special hazardous waste from the terminal, non-hazardous waste and solid
urban waste. The most significant impact of Changi airport on the surrounding community is
energy efficiency and conservation that leads to consumption of the energy. It is considered that
energy consumption results in the degradation of the environment (Franssen, Staatsen & Lebret,
2002). Also, the impacts of global warming like melting ice caps and droughts will decrease the
water availability in the surrounding community.
Socio-economic management of the airport
The measurement of the economic impact needs to be done with great strategies so that it helps
in promoting the effectiveness and efficiency of the entire business procedures concerned. The
direct impacts can effectively be measured based on the on-site as well as the activities of off-site
(Aswani, Diedrich & Currier, 2015). The on-site impacts can be measured by evaluating the
amount paid by the airport mainly for their respective services consisting of the manufacturing as
well as operations along with the maintenance of buildings (Collins & Cooper, 2017). It also
includes the facilities provided to the employees. Moreover, it is important for the management
team to manage the off-site activities by evaluating the affected employment and the income
within a certain neighborhood.

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Environmental Management of airport
To manage emissions or decrease the carbon footprints the measures that are implemented by the
Changi Airport the use of renewable energy supplies, power generation plants of low emission
on the sites and improvement in the energy efficiency as well as the ground fleet conversions.
The Changi airport is becoming carbon accredited to make sure that it increases the airport
credibility and profitability, decrease the price and executes efficient operations (Gillen &
Hinsch, 2001). Changi Airport must utilize certain measures such as home insulation, anti-noise
barriers, air traffic management, operating limits and restrictions, and noise monitoring systems
to reduce the noise levels. The measures such as the promotion of green transport access nodes
and air quality monitoring systems must be utilized to control air pollution. The measure applied
to control the wastewater is utilization of the anti-icing agents, biological degraded de-icing,
grease separator systems, hydrocarbon, oil, sampling at discharge points, ground and surface
water quality monitoring, drainage systems and sewage and wastewater plants. It is significant
for the airport to carry out the safe disposal and collection of hazardous waste to separate or
reduce waste (Jarvis, Stoeckl & Liu, 2016). For increasing the efficiency of water, it is
significant for Changi Airport to install different leak detection systems, implement operations
for water recycling and install water reduction to decrease the demand for portable water.
Conclusion
The paper helps in discussing the social impact and the operations on the surrounding
community of the Changi Airport. The need for performance measurements has been evaluated
and discussed effectively throughout the paper. Changi Airport is known as one of the largest
transportation hubs in Southeast Asia and major civilian airport in Singapore. The organization is
engaged in effectively managing the on-site as well as the offsite activities. Moreover, the paper
will provide effective suggestions for managing the environmental and social impact on the
airport. There is a crucial need to manage the services efficiently for the employees as well as the
customers too.

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