Civil aviation is being constrained by the poor understanding of environmental and operational interdependencies. 

Noise, and carbon emissions belong to different physical spheres not directly comparable and managed under separate regulations. Noise reduction has been the priority for the aviation industry for many years, but this recently shifted to decarbonisation to achieve Net Zero emissions. Although carbon emissions are one of the main contributors to environmental impacts at global level, we still must consider local impacts like noise affecting the environment and communities.

In this webinar Pierangelo Di Stefano will explain the process he helped develop at Noise Consultants to describe the interrelations between carbon and noise emissions for Airspace Management. Through this process, overall environmental benefits and disadvantages of airspace change concepts and operational procedure changes are assessed, considering both the monetisation of harmful effects and the costs of the carbon emissions impacts on the environment. 

While some designs provide benefits for noise or carbon emissions, others might provide minimum benefits despite the high costs associated either for noise or carbon, or their effectiveness might depend on the location where they occur. 

In the context of sustainable aviation, this process provides a tool for airspace developers to identify the trade-off between noise and carbon emission to design an effective sustainable airspace.

This free online event is open to everyone.

Our speaker

Pierangelo Di Stefano is Principal Consultant as part of Noise Consultants Limited, working on noise and assisting in the coordination of wider environmental topic areas such as carbon, air quality and environmental strategy for aviation projects, which includes airport development, airspace change and research works.

He is currently working on different aviation projects such as the Heathrow Airspace Modernisation, Gatwick Airport’s Noise Action Plan and Fiumicino Airport’s noise strategic plan.

Most recently, he worked on the study on Airport Noise Reduction for the European Commission DG Environment on the implementation of the European legislation on noise management at 63 major airports, providing an overview on how aircraft noise is currently being managed within the European Union Member States.

He also worked on the London Heathrow Expansion project as a member of the Noise Integrated Design Team. His work covered the Future Runway Operations, assessments and monetisation of health impacts, and the "Likely Significant Effects" assessments as part of the Environmental Impact Assessment.  

He has 10 years of experience, spanning from transportation noise and vibrations - in particular on aviation as well as railways and underground train movements - to building and MEP acoustic design working on a wide range of projects including for education, residential and commercial developments from planning to detailed design.

He was Deputy Chair of the British Aviation Group (BAG) Next Gen between 2020 and 2022, and from 2021 he is part of the BAG Sustainability Working Group. He is a Member of the Institute of Acoustics (MIOA) and of the Institution of Environmental Sciences (MIEnvSc).