Qatar Airways' Environmental Management for Sustainable Development

This report examines the environmental impact of the aviation industry, focusing on Qatar Airways' efforts to mitigate its effects. The study highlights the airline's strategies to reduce emissions, noise pollution, and land use, including fuel-saving measures, waste management programs, and the adoption of green technologies. Qatar Airways' commitment to environmental sustainability is demonstrated through its IEnvA certification and investments in fuel-efficient aircraft. The report also discusses areas for improvement, such as enhanced airport design, green building standards, and the potential use of electric vehicles. Furthermore, it addresses broader environmental issues like air traffic management and environmental taxes. The airline's initiatives, such as fitting "Sharklets," reducing onboard magazine weight, and optimizing aircraft loading, are analyzed in detail. The report concludes by emphasizing Qatar Airways' commitment to environmental governance and its role in promoting sustainable practices within the airline industry. The document showcases how the airline is working towards a healthier environment and minimizing its ecological footprint.

Environmental Management 1
Environmental Management for Sustainable Development

Environmental Management 2
Environmental management is understood as the sympathetic work towards the Earth’s
system where humans are worried about the environment. Management of environment starts
with evaluation of the changes that are noticed in the environment and hence doing efforts
towards modifications that are needed so as to enhance the human benefits (Han, Yu & Kim,
2019). However, normally, environmental management is related to the process of decision
making and it is more focused towards the way of decision making in the context of using the
natural resources, the pollution of habitats and changes of ecosystems. This assignment
highlights the impact of environment on the airline industry and the way in which Qatar Airlines
are taking steps to reduce this environmental impact especially in the areas such as emission,
noise, soil, water etc. The changes they have made to address these effects are discussed in this
assignment.
The environmental impact of the aviation industry is due to the carbon and other gas
emission and the heat of the engines as they have the direct impact on the climate change. High
rates of carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide, sulfur oxide, hydrocarbons, black carbon and
lead are generated by the Aircrafts are some of the major pollutants of air. Despite the reduction
in emissions from plane and less corrupt turbofan engines, there are significant changes that are
required to further reduce the carbon emission. Since the numbers of customers in the aviation
industry is increasing at much faster rate hence the numbers of flights are also going to increase
which will ultimately have more impact on the total pollution from aviation. In reference to
Qatar Airways, it has been found that operation of Qatar Aviation has a significant impact on the
environment. The operation of the company is adversely affecting the environment on the global
scale in the form of noise, air quality and land use (Lehmann & Joseph, 2015).
Analysis of noise and impact criteria will definitely experience a change in the next
millennium. Due to the mandatory technological changes, progressive noise effects have
decreased over the last 20 years (Gulf Times, 2014). The advocacy groups can measure aircraft’s
noise and found that it is quite hard to improve on this variable. Traffic has been expanded at
large airports and there is expansion of small and regional airports. Aviation and airline officials
have developed the Continuous Dissent approach process.
Air quality refers to the amount of pollutant generated by aircrafts which has been
increased in the operation of the aviation industry due to increase demand. The air quality can be

Environmental Management 3
categorized into two terms such as particulate emissions and lead emissions (Schaltegger, Burritt
& Petersen, 2017). In the context particulate emission, ultrafine particles are encouraged by
aircraft engines at the time of near surface level entailing climb, landing and takeoff. Along with
that the generation of lead is identified as the major threat that put adverse effects on the nervous
system and immune system.
The operation of aviation industry put adverse impact on the environment. Airport
runaways, buildings and taxiways take control of a part of our ecosystem. Qatar airways have
acquired large areas of land for the purpose of runways, taxiways and building which is having
direct interaction with the human population (Gulf Times, 2014). Proper international standards
needs to maintain while the design and development of airports.
According to their sustainability report, the airways of Qatar recognized that its fast
expansion could have larger impact on the environment and hence it has diverted its attention to
becoming a fuel-efficient company. Above-mentioned factors have negative impacts on the
environment and to reduce it, Qatar Airways take initiatives in the direction of the environmental
management. Qatar Airways has launched the program for environment so as to achieve full
industry certification of its global approach to handling the waste management, emission, land
use and climate change. Along with that the company recently greeted IATA representatives to
Doha in order to launch journey of airline to attaining IATA’s Environmental Assessment
(IEnvA) (Jäckel & Maier, 2016). The environment program of airline entails all necessary
aspects such as global operation of Qatar Airway, involving ground operations and corporate
activities. The company have made a strong commitment to assigning resources and time to
endlessly developing the performance of company and ensuring that they have sustainability in
the future. This company is more productive in the context of assuring string environmental
governance which is the collective confront for the airline industry. It has been found that Qatar
Airways has been one of the leaders in the process of IEnvA and has promised its support to lead
the industry and to develop a customized certification of environmental scheme that meets the
special environmental challenges.
The efforts of Qatar Airlines towards environmental management have a greater
influence on the performance of the employees. For this company needs to give training to the
employees so that they can maintain their performance in the period of change. The role of Qatar

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Airways in environmental management is huge and it gives noteworthy results to becoming first
airline to attain certification in 2003 (Hahladakis & Aljabri, 2019). However, there are various
things in the operation which cannot be neglected by the management in order to attain
environmental management.
Yes, they have done enough contribution in the context to reduce the environmental
impact. Qatar Airlines has cleared the stage 1 assessment and provided assurance to implement
the stage 2 standards (Chiambaretto & Wassmer, 2019). This makes Qatar Airways one of the
leading carries in the field of environmental sustainability.
Yes, there are good reasons for not addressing some of the environmental issues such as
land use because the development in airline industry will be helpful for the general public.
People can easily travel anywhere without consuming a lot of time (Belobaba, Odoni &
Barnhart, 2015). Qatar airways have the policy of zero tolerance to the illegal transportation of
scarce wildlife. Qatar Airways is committed to develop detection, sharing best practice and
intelligence with the industry. This company needs to work on setting implementing advanced
technologies in their different processes.
The role of these changes in airline industry brings revolution in CO2 emissions, issues
of air quality, waste of water and food and reducing unnecessary land use, as their efforts in
creating a healthy environment, which is a very good initiative taken by Qatar Airways. They
minimised these issues by developing various strategies within the operation so that possible
contribution can be made towards healthy environment. It has been found that they have started
to focus on fuel saving for which they start to fit “Sharklets” (a wingtip on the Airbus) on top of
its Airbus fleet. This saved 4.6 ton of fuel and a large amount of CO2 from getting released in
first week after fitting. Qatar Airways have started to avoid carrying a lot of magazines on board
in order to minimise weight. By implementing this strategy, the airway is able to save around
237 tonnes of fuel in a year. An alternate option as old Doha Airport for runway is being kept by
Qatar Airways in order to reduce the requirement to carry extra fuel in case of emergencies. The
airway assures that the loading way of aircraft would be changed and done with the help of
potable water. By this activity, the airway is able to save around 733 tonnes a year (Doha News,
2016).

Environmental Management 5
For making airports energy efficient, Qatar Airways has made a lot of efforts. They have
made recycling at the airports as their priority. Till 2015, on an average, 30% non-hazardous
wastes are being recycled. In order to reduce the waste of the airport, the airways initiatives to
make waste water treatment plants. The airline has developed a procedure for recycling as much
water as possible in the process of washing its aircraft. Qatar Airways has decided to donate
unwanted technical equipments and food to the charity. The airline has decided to become a
participant in the United for Wildlife Transport Industry Declaration.
However, there are number of things that have been done by Qatar Airways in the context
of improving the air quality. The airway started to take initiatives and has applied various
strategies in the operations so that environmental impact can be reduced. But there are some
other strategies as well which could have been adopted by Qatar Airways towards bringing
change. Qatar Airways can improve airport design and ground control operations and can take
use of more advanced technologies for reducing CO2 emissions. The airways can develop green
building standards for new terminals and LED lights so that unnecessary expenses can be
reduced and save energy for other purpose. There could have been development of electric
vehicle which can be taken into consideration by Qatar Airways in the context of reducing air
pollution. There is an example of Cochin International Airport that powered entirely by solar
energy. It is good and efficient approach by airport in reducing air pollution and generates
electricity without hampering a lot of cost of high equipments.
There are other issues as well which influence the productivity of the airline industry. These can
be Air Traffic, levy of environmental taxes and land use planning.
In the context of environmental tax, it can be distinguished into number of types relying
on what, why and when are they levied upon. These are energy taxes pollution taxes, transport
taxes and resources taxes (Ringham & Miles, 2018). These taxes should be considered by the
airlines to remove the environment issues from the world.
There should be a proper plan about how land use will be considered by Qatar Airways.
Proper land use will allow company to control the noise as the design of the airports will be such
that it does not affect the people residing close to the airports. Future developments need to
ensure that the flying areas must be at significant distance from the area where people are living.

Environmental Management 6
This sort of land use planning must be major component of master plan of airport from the outset
in order to ignore issues in the future.
It has been found that due to numbers of flights are highest at the time of morning and
evening hence the contribution towards air pollution is also high in this time This is also because
at the peak hours there are more numbers of airplanes waiting for take-off clearance, hence many
engines are active which excludes smoke and blurs atmosphere at runway airports. At the time
when aircrafts are at ground, the harmful CO2, NO x compounds are emitted from airport’s
vehicle and aircraft which is hazardous for health of people residing close to the airport.
Qatar Airways is honest towards its performance in the context of reducing the
environmental impact. As per its environmental sustainability report, it has been found that the
company is world leading airlines that fly to number of destinations. There are around 200 new
aircraft in Qatar Airways that ensures that they have a fuel-efficient fleet (Qatar, 2019). This
investment evaluates the commitment of the airway to the environment and makes sure a first-
class travel experience. The project of Qatar Airways is accomplished with the help of their
partner airlines to attain more effective air travel. It entails underneath Air Traffic Control
authorities to bring attention towards the airspace management and cooperating to help
passengers to take consideration of e-tickets at the time of their global journey in order to
decrease the printing of paper tickets (Mannan, Alhaj, Mabrouk & Al-Ghamdi, 2019).
The environment management system of Qatar Airways is certified to upper level of
IATA’s assessment programme as this certification focuses on the catering and carbon service,
cargo airline operations, maintenance and repair of aircraft and other corporate functions (Tyler,
2016). The airway is more productive in contributing great environment to the world and
environmental performance by Qatar Airways is being delivered by embedding the
environmental policy and procedures during operations of business. The environmental
management of airway is more advanced in measuring and checking the progress in the direction
of the targets and objectives towards environmental management (Han, Yu & Kim, 2019). The
company needs to provide visible environmental training to all employees for driving and
handling the progress towards the environmental objective.

Environmental Management 7
With respect to climate change, Qatar Airways make a noteworthy contribution towards
worldwide response to climate change. The environmental management of Qatar Airways
contribute towards making improvement in the international and local environmental problems.
The efficiency of air travel is increased by Qatar Airways by fuel optimisation programme
(Albers, Baum, Auerbach & Delfmann, 2017). It includes executing and evaluating new ways to
save fuel and decrease carbon emissions. It can be done by recognising the ways in which there
is decrease in aircraft fuel consumption and focusing on efficiency of routes of fight (Bose,
2018). It has been analyzed through the website and environmental program of Qatar Airways
that the contribution of airway is wider in preventing illegal wildlife transportation. There is a
zero tolerance policy in the environmental management of the airways regarding illegal
transportation of scarce wildlife. To reduce the global threat, Qatar Airways is committed to
developing detection and increasing awareness.
It is the strategy of every company to put positive implementation and contribution of the
company towards sustainability management. It shall be noted that Qatar Airways has some
negative aspect as well that should be considered by the management of airways in an efficient
manner. Qatar Airways has to face financial issues by undefined clear signals that deal embargo
promoted in June last year through Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain is having an influence
(Dudley, 2018). Qatar Airways has to close it’s all four offices in different countries and in and
out route of flying of this airways are suspended and cut-off vital source of traffic due to its long
haul services. Along with this, due to its policies the airway is forced to keep away from the four
barricades airspace of countries (Chiambaretto & Wassmer, 2019). It means that the company
had to choose fly longer routes to satisfy the customer and reach destinations in Africa, America
and Europe. This can be avoided by the company by finding new routes and making agreements
with the governments so that their flights can fly over their country and hence reaching their
destination through shortest paths.
It can be concluded from above discussion that the airline should concentrate on air
navigation services and airport infrastructure. It develops the system's inadequacy and
unpredictability and produces a lot of extra energy consumption and emissions. The discussion
has been made on Qatar Airways in this assignment in order to highlight those factors that affect
the environment. The effect of Qatar Airways Operation on the environment has been defined in

Environmental Management 8
an appropriate manner. After that, the highlight on making changes in the operation to develop
environmental friendly nature. The evaluation has been done in the context of the success of
taken implementation for bringing change in the operation to reduce environmental impacts.

Environmental Management 9
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