Cambodian Youngsters Lead World Environment Day’s Initiatives

Every year, Cambodia’s 3 international airports join their sister airports, a network of 36 hubs worldwide developed and managed by VINCI Airports, in celebrating World Environment Day. In Cambodia, the 2018 event has been extended to a full week focusing on entrusting youngsters with a leading role in building awareness on plastic waste, in particular on single-use plastic such as cups, straws, bags and other packaging. The key message is “If you can’t reuse it, refuse it.”

Each day of the week, there will be initiatives evolving around educating all airport stakeholders about negative impacts of plastic overuse, including:

• Clean walks along the airports’ fences in Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, and Sihanoukville.
• Involvement of tenants in cutting down the amount of single-use plastic by systematically asking their customers if they really need plastic straws, bags, cup covers etc.
• Invitation to 20 primary school students to join a workshop on plastic use in Cambodia and work on an awareness campaign by drawing a communication visual and enter a drawing contest. The results of this workshop will be displayed at the airports terminals. Then students will be asked to share their experience to their fellow classmates back in school.
• Environmental awareness sessions, in partnership and conducted by the local NGO SIPAR, for 20 children of grades 3 to 5 from NGO schools. They will be asked to draw what they think about environment and their drawings will be displayed at the terminals.
• Invitation to 9 associations, each contributing in their own way to the environment, to come and present their activities, coordinated by Soulcial Trust: Clean Green Cambodia, ReHash Trash, Kingdom of WOW, Can’Art, Friends ‘n’ Stuff, Gaea Waste Management, Plastic Free Cambodia, Cambodia Bird Guide Association (CBGA), and environmental artist Monisilong Riem.

And at the very end of the week:

• Survey undertaken by Young Eco Ambassadors for feedbacks from tenants and passengers about the World Environment Day events at the airports.
• Selection from the drawing contest of 3 visuals that could turn into a successful awareness message. The winners will be awarded special prizes.

Éric DELOBEL, CEO of Cambodia Airports, said: “Environmental consciousness must lead to concrete actions and that’s what we have been achieving at the airports for years. A few months ago, we commissioned 2 waste water treatment plants at Phnom Penh and Siem Reap airports. Other initiatives deployed include streamlining electricity use at the airports’ facilities, phasing out old vehicles and sorting of waste.”

Within the framework of the Airport Carbon Accreditation (ACA), introduced in 2009 on the initiative of the Airports Council International (ACI), Cambodia’s 3 international airports renewed last March the level 1 certification of a program aiming at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Independently verified, the accreditation results from the successful mapping of all CO2 emissions at the airports in Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and Sihanoukville. The carbon footprint obtained can therefore be used as a starting point to control, reduce and ultimately neutralize the airports’ impact on their environment.

VINCI Airports, Cambodia Airports’ mother company, is the first international group to commit all of its airports to the Airports Carbon Accreditation program. Today, all of them have been continuously certified at different levels.

Media contact:     

KHEK Norinda (Mr)

Email: norinda.khek@cambodia-airports.aero