Establishing an aviation ecosystem indicator to reduce CO2 emissions in CDO landings

Purpose: This article focuses on specifying a way for the aviation ecosystem to develop and communicate CO2-reductive CDO landings in a more harmonized way. Therefore, the aim in the conducted research was to find a method to measure the strategic ecosystem health and increase it with a common ecosystem indicator for CO2 reductions in CDO landings. Airlines, through fuel consumption, have a recognized role in flight-time CO2 reductions, but the aviation ecosystem has an impact as well. However, the ecosystem impact recognition in communication is not clear and an ecosystem-level official sustainability reporting method does not exist.Design/methodology/approach: For the study, semi-structured interviews among the key stakeholders impacting the CDO landings at Helsinki Airport were conducted. The ecosystem stakeholder organizations selected for interviews were the air navigation service provider, airport operator, aviation safety authority, and three airlines.Findings and Originality/value: The results show that all the selected aviation ecosystem stakeholders have a significant role to play in the CDO process. However, the official corporate targets for the CDO process in the ecosystem do not align. The measuring methods or indicators are not the same in the aviation ecosystem either. To assess the effectiveness and the quality of the ecosystem functionality, an ecosystem health index approach is applied. For this purpose, Strategic Ecosystem Health Index (SEHI) for CO2 reductive CDO landings is introduced.Originality/value: In conclusion, a fully aligned ecosystem indicator to improve the strategic ecosystem health of CO2 reductive CDO landings is suggested. This purely fuel consumption-based indicator set for all the stakeholders at the same time would increase collaboration and thus success in CO2 reductions in CDO landings It could also help the ecosystem stakeholders to communicate about their role and support airline standardized environmental reporting for CO2 reductions in CDO. The implementation of the suggested indicator is visualized with a Conceptual Influence Diagram (CID).