Potential carbon sequestration at Malmö Airport by use of extensive green roof.

Sammanfattning: Huge amounts of greenhouse gases continuously released into the atmosphere is of large global concern. Carbon dioxide makes up a large part of released greenhouse gases. Especially the aircraft industry, which is experiencing a steady annual increase as air travel grows in popularity. This business sees 72% of all its combustion products in aircraft exhausts to be carbon dioxide. Swedavia, a company striving to be a leader in sustainable airports has therefore set a neutral carbon dioxide goal regarding their own activities by the end of 2020. Swedavia therefore intends to sequester as much carbon as they release from their vehicles and backup diesel engines, minus work/related travelling. This paper investigates possibilities of using an extensive green roof at Malmö Airport to reduce carbon emission to neutral for all major sources related to airport activity, not just Swedavia’s own emissions. Conclusion on project feasibility are based on previous carbon sequestration research, CO₂ emissions of Malmö Airport and roofed area available for an extensive green roof installation. By using the amount of carbon capable of being sequestered per m2 of extensive green roofs, it was possible to calculate a total area of green roof which would need to be installed at Malmö Airport. Results proved to be impossible to apply practically and using solely green roofs to reach carbon neutrality by the end of 2020 is therefore not feasible.