From Runways to Renewables: Exploring Sustainability at John Wayne Airport

On Friday, April 18th, 2025, USC ITE members participated in a technical tour at John Wayne International Airport (SNA) in Orange County. USC ITE members were joined by fellow ITE student chapters at UC Irvine, UC Riverside, and Cal Poly Pomona on this two-part tour that included a presentation on the airport’s environmental sustainability efforts and the operating constraints it finds itself in with the local noise abatement ordinances along with a bus tour around the interior perimeter of the airport.

Our tour began with a presentation by the airport’s sustainability team on their current efforts to implement initiatives that limit their electricity and water usage. The team shared with us the work being done on installing EV chargers around the airport and transitioning to a clean air bus fleet. There are also plans to install a solar roof on the airport’s parking lot #3. Scheduled to begin next year, the solar roof aims to take advantage of the open rooftop space to maximize the capacity for renewable energy generation at the airport and transform a portion of their operations to run strictly on renewables. While a battery will be installed in the future to store the generated energy, payment terminals have already been installed within the parking lot itself to avoid lines of idling cars at parking lot exits to reduce the overall greenhouse gas emissions produced by the parking lot facility.

The SNA airport team acknowledged that, although much is being done to mitigate the 23% of airport emissions stemming from vehicle traffic, 70% of the airport's emissions come from airplanes. Unfortunately, it isn't within the airport's purview to address aircraft emissions and would instead need to be addressed through new regulations issued by the Federal Aviation Administration.

The sustainability team also needs to consider the effect the airport has on local wildlife. Students learned about the stringent environmental protection standards that are placed upon SNA. In John Wayne’s runway improvement project, the airport had to find a way to reduce the copper levels of its water runoff to levels even lower than what is acceptable for drinking water. While humans may be able to handle more copper in their water, the wildlife around the airport certainly cannot. Noise abatement was an important consideration as well as local ordinances strictly dictate the amount of noise pollution airport operations can produce. The high costs associated with these considerations and constraints put into perspective the funding challenges airports face.

After the presentation, we were taken on a bus tour of SNA’s airside operations. We entered the west gate and took a clockwise tour that included highlights such as the airport fire station, fueling tanks, passenger terminals, and the private terminals where we saw a business jet emblazoned with the LA Chargers’ logo! We were able to see the newest firefighting technology in action and learned that an airport firefighters’ main job is to create a safe path for passengers to flee a plane in the event of an emergency. Safety and operational readiness are at the core of everything they do and that was reflected in their thorough presentation of their mission and operations.

The main takeaway from this tour was that each airport operates like their own little city and the way they interact with the surrounding urban fabric presents challenges for both cities and counties looking to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. At the end of the day, planes are still one of the most carbon emitting ways to travel but it is inspiring and hopeful to see airports like John Wayne take the initiative to greatly reduce their impact on the environment. It was an amazing experience to be able to gain an inside look at SNA’s airport operations!