Kenya Airports Authority plans to become greenest airport operator in Africa

Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) has launched its going green initiative with a goal of becoming the greenest airport operator in Africa by 2022.
The initiative is in line with the authority’s 2018-2022 strategic plan aimed at guiding the authority’s strategic direction over the next five years.
In the plan, the authority also focuses on customer satisfaction with ‘To provide a consistent delightful travel experience’ set as the agency’s new mission, and ‘Travel Stress Free’ as its vision.
While commenting on the authority’s new green strategic direction, KAA Managing Director, Mr. Jonny Andersen said that, “It is now a reality that Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing mankind.”
According to Anderson, Aviation has been criticized as a major contributor of carbon emissions and this has led to a steady growth of airports embracing green energy.
“As Kenya Airports Authority, we would like to place Kenya in the center of this momentum with our goal to be the greenest airport operator in the region by the year 2022,” he said.
The strategic plan describes the means and strategies that will be employed by the authority in pursuit of developing the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) into a world-class airport of choice while strengthening Kenya’s position as the East and Central Africa aviation hub.
The authority’s 2018-2022 strategic plan highlights environmental stewardship as one of its main strategic areas stating that the organization will over the next five years seek to implement a carbon accreditation program, undertake afforestation, solar power and rain water harvesting program across it network and acquire the ISO 14001-2015: Environmental Management System (EMS) Standard.
In December 2018, The President of the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), Dr. Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu officiated the launch of a ground-mounted 500kW solar power generation facility at Moi International Airport in Mombasa; becoming the first in the region to install a solar system at an airport to reduce aviation carbon emissions by aircraft during take-off.
By Joseph Ng’ang’a