Heathrow Airport's Sustainable Future: Powered by Collaboration
Heathrow Airport's Sustainable Future: Powered by Collaboration
Collaboration for Sustainable Growth
With a staggering 70,000 employees working at Heathrow Airport, it is no surprise that it is the UK’s largest single-site employer and operating at 98% capacity, makes it a very interesting business case to study. In November, I attended the 25th edition of the Heathrow Business Summit, which promoted economic growth in the local community and provided an insight into how working with Heathrow Airport will enable SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) play a central role in the airport’s operation and wider sustainable supply chain. There were around 40 exhibitors which were made up of Heathrow Airport’s partners, SME’s and Tier 1’ companies.
Nigel Milton the Chief of Staff and Carbon at Heathrow Airport, hosted the day and discussed that the theme for this year’s summit was ‘Let’s do business….’ Rather than talking about business opportunities, ensuring the business is delivered and realised.
Thomas Woldbye, who was recently appointed CEO of Heathrow Airport, gave a welcome address and his first public speech in this role about the impact of Heathrow Airport on its surrounding society both positively, such as the economic wealth to the local community whilst also acknowledging the negative impacts to the environment.
There was a strong focus on wanting to improve sustainability and how this requires innovation and community engagement, which is the purpose of this summit with special mention of their pride that SME’s make up 40% of the supply chain at Heathrow Airport.
Andrew Dakers who is the CEO at West London Business spoke about the future of business collaboration and gave an overview of the economic climate in the region including available opportunities and how innovative SMEs can take advantage of these to grow their business. Heathrow Airport is the busiest airport in western Europe and with 46% of the population of West London born outside the area this shows the importance of harnessing the cultural diversity.
Heathrow Airport is the centre of much of the region’s economic growth in areas such as tourism, supply chain and growth of SME’s, and with passenger numbers above pre-pandemic, he hailed this as a great achievement. There was talk about the surrounding universities in the area and the need to continue gaining this knowledge, innovation and resource.
Heathrow Airport's Sustainable Strategy 2.0
Becky Coffin, Communities and Sustainability Director at Heathrow Airport spoke about the ‘Heathrow Airport 2.0 Sustainability Strategy’ and provided a 12-month progress review which aims to create a thriving supply chain that is aligned with Heathrow’s sustainable targets and also support SMEs across the UK that do business with Heathrow Airport. The strategy has two key pillars, the first of which is net-zero aviation and the second is to make Heathrow a great place to live and work.
Becky stressed that they cannot do this alone and needs to work with partners within the supply chain to make progress within the next few years with their ambitious targets. These include targets by 2030 to cut carbon by 15% in the air compared to 2019 and to cut at least 45% in carbon on the ground compared to 2019. Heathrow Airport are investing £200 million in carbon and sustainability programmes and many areas of this were discussed such as electrifying the airport, research into hydrogen-powered aircrafts in collaboration with Rolls Royce.
There was a focus on the theme of post-pandemic - ‘building back better’ and with the above mentioned 70,000 people who come to work at Heathrow Airport every day, it is important to consider a sustainable travel zone strategy, noise reduction strategies and inclusive employer projects. Becky stressed that they have made progress but there is still a lot to do.
Procurement for Value and Innovation
Paul Doherty, Procurement Director, at Heathrow Airport talked in further detail about working towards a sustainable supply chain and the changing landscape of the procurement industry, not just at Heathrow Airport but across the UK. Paul spoke of the importance of creating a health and safety culture at the airport and gave examples of how their supply partners perform against the goals of their ‘Sustainable Strategy 2.0’ in terms of reducing waste, net zero targets, being an inclusive employer and having a sustainable supply chain. Paul feels that procurement used to measure how cost, time and quality had been delivered through procurement but now this model has branched out and also needs to factor in health, safety and wellbeing, sustainability and cyber and security (sites and systems), when considering if procurement is successful. These new areas are what differentiates partners to win tenders for business at Heathrow Airport.
Chris Pearce who is the Head of Procurement, Portfolio and Supplier Management at Heathrow Airport and Kim Challis who is the Regional Managing Director – UK & Ireland at Apcoa provided guidance on supporting SMEs in gaining work at Heathrow Airport, including introduction of requirements and tendering process to win business with a focus on cyber compliance.
One of the keynote speakers was Lord David Blunkett who is the Chair of the Heathrow Sustainable Economic Growth Taskforce and who spoke about the importance of driving sustainable economic growth within the sub-region, that maximises the potential of Heathrow Airport while ensuring local communities continue to thrive. Lord David Blunkett also spoke about the changing employment landscape and the need to think about re-skilling people to what is needed now. Especially considering areas such as Artificial Intelligence which shows that there is a need to think about the sort of jobs which will exist in 10 years’ time and how employers can plan for this future landscape.
Supporting SMEs in the Supply Chain
A panel session was delivered by Marta Ayling, Head of Infrastructure Procurement at Heathrow Airport and included Alan Maunder, Account Director at Mitie, Daniel Jones who is a Client Director at AtkinsRéalis, Nigel Cole, Director at Mace Group, and Rob Pengilley who is an Account Director at SITA (who is well known at BNU for recruiting our graduates). The panel spoke about discovering the many upcoming business opportunities with Heathrow supply chain partners available to the SME community. Planned projects include a spend in the next few years of around £8 billion in budget and include improvements with the security lanes, Terminal 2 baggage improvements and optimisation operation projects. Tips were given for SME’s who would like to become a supplier at Heathrow Airport. These included the need for SMEs to do their research to understand the airside environment, focussing on health and safety whilst recognising the challenges of the airport’s complex supply chain.
Keynote Speaker Alan Rides, CEO at West London Chambers spoke about the importance of SMEs for Heathrow Airport and how trade and cargo in the region is crucial for both direct and transit trade. Alan highlighted that West London is ‘where global meets local’ and spoke about how West London Chambers can offer practical advice to help SMEs engage with Heathrow Airport to grow their business.
The Onboarding Journey for Suppliers
Isabelle Liu who is the Supply Chain Manager at Heathrow Airport is keen to work with SMEs to work out the best way to develop and grow together. Working towards procurement for value, creating visible opportunities and innovative start-ups. Paul Britton, Chief Executive at Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce, Ruth-Anne Lynch who is Director of Finance and Administration at The Pallets Yard, David Burke who is Client Services & Revenue Director at MJM Industrial Ltd, Simon Butterfield, the Head of Operations Procurement at Heathrow Airport and Sarah Thomas who is Head of Procurement & Supply Chain Transportation at Costain gave a panel discussion with key stakeholders focusing on the onboarding journey to working with Heathrow Airport and its suppliers.
The Importance of Networking for SMEs
An interesting point raised was that SMEs often do not have time to network with larger companies, even though that is the very thing that they need to survive. SMEs need help engaging with networking opportunities. According to the questions raised by SME’s, many would like closer collaboration and to explore new business opportunities but perhaps need more support and clearer processes on how to apply for these opportunities and overcome the current tendering challenges. It is clear that Heathrow Airport is undertaking a large number of projects, with the goal of sustainable growth, but this will only be possible through close collaboration with SMEs, the sub-region and attracting and harnessing the capabilities skills of new employees and partners so this conversation will need to continue.
