Los Angeles airports get serious about slashing emissions

When it comes to calculating your personal carbon output, nothing expands your footprint like frequent air travel. Planes emit tremendous amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every day. To at least partially compensate, three Los Angeles airports have committed to slashing their emissions on the ground.

The news is indicative of how many major companies taking their emissions more seriously in anticipation of tough new EPA regulations that will make stringent monitoring and data reporting mandatory. The idea is to make the fees for violating regulation too high to shoulder, even for the biggest companies, giving them no choice but to become more eco-conscious.

Los Angeles International, LA/Ontario International and Van Nuys airports are all operated by Los Angeles World Airports, which has contracted with Enviance, a long-standing maker of carbon tracking software for enterprises, to help the company identify and fix major sources of emissions.

This isn’t the first time LAWA has worked with Enviance. It’s been using the company to keep tabs on its emissions for the last two years. But now it’s switching to the company’s Greenhouse Gas FastTrack program, which will allow the airports to comply with regulations enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency, even as they are changing.

Enviance’s system is continually updated with regulation changes. That way, it can alert customers if they are violating the new rules, and can make recommendations for how to fix them in time to meet EPA deadlines. Starting in March next year, large corporations like LAWA will need to be able to consistently report their greenhouse gas emissions back to the EPA.

Entirely web-based, the new software will allow LAWA to bring buildings and other facilities into compliance within 60 days or less, the company says. By the time the new EPA rules are in place, the process should be a no-brainer. The airport management company obviously wanted to get a jump on the trend. Many big box stores, utilities and manufacturers are doing the same.

Los Angeles International (LAX) has been leaning green for a while. In 2006 it had a major push to replace its fleet vehicles with low-emission models. And just last December, the airport signed a deal with synthetic fuel maker Rentech to use 1.5 million gallons of diesel made of sewer sludge to power its other ground equipment.

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