CLEVELAND — Cleveland Hopkins Airport is finalizing a new sustainability plan.
Launching this spring, the plan will cover six key areas:
- Built environment.
- Clean transportation.
- Clean energy.
- Environment and nature-based solutions.
- Waste management.
- Climate resiliency.
This will result in numerous changes in airport operations, from the types of materials used in construction to the types of vehicles in the airport's fleet to the types of paper products used in restaurants and bathrooms.
The airport's Sustainability Coordinator Elizabeth Lehman said there are benefits to these changes.
"A lot of the work and thinking about how we're building out our infrastructure has health benefits," she said. "There's also a huge cost savings that we are really looking forward to capturing."
The airport's sustainability plan is a part of the much larger Cleveland Climate Plan.
The city's plan was put in place in 2013, and it also strives to lower emissions by 2050. The city's Director of Sustainability and Climate Action, Sarah O'Keeffe, said the signs of climate change can already be seen in the area. It's important to get the city prepared now.
"We are having intense storms," O'Keeffe said. "We have more storm damage. Our residents are feeling this in flooding in their basements and tree damage. We need to make sure our infrastructure is safe. Nature-based solutions help us become resilient and recover."
O'Keeffe said the city and airport only make up two percent of the plan, so the community will need to get involved too. More ideas on how the community can help will be released in April.
