In conjunction with Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa’s city-wide sustainability initiative, Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) launched a plan to green its four-airport system, including Los Angeles International Airport. Already a leader in environmental stewardship, LAWA turned to CDM for help formalizing its initiative to build sustainable practices into its business model.
CDM created and assisted in implementing the sustainability performance improvement management system (SPIMS), which enables LAWA stakeholders to evaluate and integrate green practices across the organization. The SPIMS framework allows LAWA to continually assess its sustainability initiatives, identify areas for improvement, and prioritize implementation. This ongoing approach sets the stage for continual growth, as opposed to a one-time assessment and plan.
By setting sustainability objectives for integrating current and future projects across all business units, LAWA has been able to formalize the process and communicate its goals to the 2,500 professionals who operate and maintain the airport system. The sustainability plan outlines LAWA’s green agenda for the next few years, identifying more than 50 initiatives to be supported and implemented. Some of the initiatives are short-term goals, while others have a lifespan of 5 or more years.
Organized under nine high-level objectives—such as conserving water, integrating sustainable practices into internal policies and processes, reducing emissions and energy usage, and increasing the use of socially responsible products—the sustainability plan sets targets and outlines efforts to help achieve them. In addition, one of the most significant outcomes of the SPIMS process to date is the creation of the design and construction guidelines developed for LAWA. These industry trend-setting guidelines are being used on all design and construction projects planned for the airport modernization program.