ESG, CSR and other forms of sustainability reporting in US airports: a scoping review

Purpose The purpose of this scoping literature review was to explore the current practices on sustainability reporting in the United States (US) airport industry, emphasizing the concept of materiality. The study answers the research questions: (1) What are the commonly used sustainability reporting frameworks in selected US large-hub airports? (2) What are the pertinent sustainability material topics addressed in sustainability reports? Design/methodology/approach A scoping review was used due to the limited number of publications on this topic. The authors reviewed peer-reviewed journal articles and publicly available, self-reported airport sustainability reports for the nine airports with the highest development budgets – over a million US dollars, as reported by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the 2023 National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS) report. Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) methodology, 11 peer-reviewed articles, one technical report and 22 airport sustainability reports were included in the analysis. Findings The findings reveal that the use of standardized frameworks such as environmental, social and governance (ESG) or corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports is limited; only three of the nine airports had published such reports. Where reporting does occur, there is a noticeable lack of consistency in the material topics reported. Research limitations/implications The study limitations and their implications were: (1) Focus on US airports with development budgets of over one million USD. Different countries use different classifications for their airport system. Airports classified as large hubs in the United States may not be classified in the same category in another country. (2) The airports used were identified based on the FAA NPIAS classification published for US airports only. There are approximately 3,300 public-use airports in the NPIAS, many of which publish sustainability reports. Researchers had to establish criteria for inclusion in the study. (3) Materials analyzed consisted of peer-reviewed journal articles and self-reported airport sustainability reports. This limits the verification of the quality of reporting of the material already published. Social implications The exponential growth in the global air transport industry signals both positive benefits and negative impacts to communities. Accountability and reporting on sustainability issues in the air transport industry are crucial to curb the negative impacts and promote the positive benefits of the aviation industry. Originality/value This study contributes to the body of knowledge on airport sustainability reporting and supports efforts to develop a unified reporting framework tailored to the sector.