Template revised April 12, 2018.
COMMISSION
AGENDA MEMORANDUM
Item No.
11b
BRIEFING ITEM
Date of Meeting
April 26, 2022
DATE: April 6, 2022
TO: Stephen P. Metruck, Executive Director
FROM: Sandra Kilroy, Senior Director, Engineering, Environment & Sustainability
Jane Dewell, Senior Manager, Marine Stormwater Utility
Jeremy Webb, Environmental Program Manager, Aviation Environment &
Sustainability
Tom Fagerstrom, Airport Noise Programs Coordinator
SUBJECT: Sustainable Century and Fly Quiet Awards
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In honor of Earth Day (April 22, 2022), Port staff are pleased to announce winners of the Port’s
2020-2021 Sustainable Century Awards for the Aviation and Maritime Divisions. These awards
recognize our customers, tenants, non-profits, and partners for outstanding accomplishments in
the areas of environment and sustainability. Award winners serve as role models and
demonstrate exceptional leadership in their operations or involvement with Port maritime
facilities and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA). These businesses are key partners in
helping the Port achieve our sustainability goals set forth in the Century Agenda.
Following a brief pause last year due to the COVID pandemic, the Port’s environmental awards
program returns in 2022 with improvements. The new name, Sustainable Century Awards,
reflects deeper alignment with the Port’s Century Agenda goals. In addition, the Port added two
new award categories focusing on 1) equity, diversity, and inclusion, and 2) support for an
equitable recovery from the pandemic. The Port also added Aviation awards to highlight airlines
that reduce emissions by using airport ground power systems, and more fuel-efficient aircraft.
These last two categories are based solely on SEA’s operational system data rather than
nominations. Staff communicated to Commission our plans to update award programs in
January, 2021 and proposed changes in December, 2021.
Port staff also recognize winners of the Port’s Fly Quiet Awards for airline noise reduction efforts
at SEA. The annual Fly Quiet Awards were developed by Port staff and a citizen advisory
committee in 2005 to increase airline and pilot awareness of aircraft noise impacts on local
communities.
COMMISSION AGENDA – Briefing Item No. 11b Page 2 of 6
Meeting Date: April 26, 2022
Template revised September 22, 2016.
This year’s award winners include:
Sustainable Century Awards
• Maritime – Fishermen’s Finest, Inc., SSA Marine/Carrix, and Whooshh Innovations; and
• Aviation – Bellair Charters & Airporter Shuttle, Delta Air Lines, and Southwest Airlines.
Fly Quiet
• Spirit Airlines, Frontier Airlines, and EVA Airways.
MARITIME SUSTAINABLE CENTURY AWARDS
The Maritime Division received five nominations, selected two award winners, and recognizes
one nomination with an honorable mention. Award winners and key accomplishments are:
Fishermen’s Finest, Inc. (Environmental Innovation Category)
This award recognizes Fishermen’s Finest for innovation, ambition, and leadership on energy
conservation and environmental sustainability, including setting a net-zero carbon goal for their
fishing fleet, and providing an excellent example of sustainable fishing practices for the fishing
industry. Their achievements include:
• Commissioning a new fishing vessel in 2019, America’s Finest, a 240-foot trawler
constructed in Anacortes, WA, that reduces fuel consumption by 66% and that represents
the lowest carbon footprint of the Bering Sea Trawl Fleet,
• Becoming the first commercial fishing fleet to achieve certification under the Green
Marine environmental certification program for the maritime industry, a rigorous and
transparent third-party certification program,
• Inspired by the climate change impacts they were witnessing in the Bering Sea, purchasing
the first sale of local carbon offset credits from King County’s Forest Carbon Program, a
unique program to protect city trees and urban forest, and
• Being a woman-owned/minority-owned business.
SSA Marine/Carrix (Equitable COVID Pandemic Recovery Category)
This award recognizes SSA Marine/Carrix for promoting an equitable COVID recovery by
collaborating with government and healthcare organizations to support trade and cruise
operations during the pandemic. The following donations are being recognized for this award:
• In April 2020, they teamed up with Columbia Hospitality and Food Lifeline, the largest
foodbank in Washington, to meet growing food demand during the challenges of the
pandemic. They donated a 160,000-square-foot space for Food Lifeline in Seattle’s SoDo
District, which doubled the organization’s capacity and tripled its staffing. They also
donated six forklifts, five pallet jacks, and 12 propane tanks for the new Food Lifeline
warehouse. This allowed Food Lifeline’s distribution to increase 41% between April 2020
and 2021, representing an additional 20 million pounds of food in one year. The support
also increased food distribution to over 300 organizations in Western Washington.
• In Spring 2021, company staff provided all the volunteers needed to run a newly opened
drive-through mass vaccination site for two weeks at North Seattle Community College.
COMMISSION AGENDA – Briefing Item No. 11b Page 3 of 6
Meeting Date: April 26, 2022
Template revised September 22, 2016.
During the seven-day clinic, they provided over 80 volunteers to support the Seattle
Visiting Nurses Association and delivered up to 390 shots per day, or over 2,700 vaccines.
Whooshh Innovations (Honorable Mention - Environmental Innovation Category)
This Honorable Mention recognizes a significant new technical innovation by Whooshh that
supported fish passage in a section of the Fraser River, British Columbia, following a landslide
that blocked the migratory route for a significant salmon run.
• They invented a 'Passage Portal' that allowed juvenile and mature salmon to get around
the Fraser River blockage. This method removed the need for human handling, a
significant improvement for fish passage.
• The portal incorporates electronic tracking to allow for accurate fish counts. During the
first season of use, 125,000 salmon passed through the portal.
• This is a promising technology to support salmon runs where fish passage is impeded, and
with wider use, could contribute to supporting the critical food source for the Salish Sea’s
Southern Resident Killer Whale.
AVIATION SUSTAINABLE CENTURY AWARDS
The Aviation Division received five nominations in nomination-based award categories and
selected one winner. We also award two airlines for efforts to reduce emissions by using airport
ground power systems and highly fuel-efficient aircraft.
1
These awards will expand in future years
to include additional monitoring systems, but initially only include ground power use for 2021.
In addition, only those airlines that had more than 5,000 flight operations at SEA in 2021 were
included in this category, as they represent more than 80% of the fuel load. Award winners and
key accomplishments are described by award category below.
Bellair Charters & Airporter Shuttle (Environmental Innovation Category)
This award recognizes Bellair’s innovative long-term partnership supporting SEA’s Raptor Strike
Avoidance Program. This program helps protect local wildlife, increase airport operational safety
by reducing aircraft risk of bird-strike, and reduce Port labor and costs while preventing
greenhouse gas emissions. Bellair:
• Since 2011, voluntarily transported nearly 800 birds-of-prey (i.e., raptors) captured at SEA
under the Raptor Strike Avoidance Program using their own Airporter shuttle fleet, fuel
and staff on return routes to Burlington, WA at no cost to the Port.
• Captured raptors including red-tailed hawks and 16 other species and transported them
from SEA to farmland habitat near the Northwest WA community of Bow for tagging and
release to the wild.
• By using existing “backhaul” trips, prevented an estimated 119,000 vehicle-miles-
traveled, which reduced labor by approximately 3,000 hours, saved $24,000 in fuel, and
avoided 70 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
1
These recognitions rely on airport operational data from new monitoring systems, allowing us to measure airline
fleet composition and ground system connectivity at SEA.
COMMISSION AGENDA – Briefing Item No. 11b Page 4 of 6
Meeting Date: April 26, 2022
Template revised September 22, 2016.
Southwest Airlines (Greatest use of airport ground power systems)
• High use of emission reducing ground power systems (80-90% of all operations connect
to the systems), and
• Longest connectivity to ground power systems while at gate (over 80% of the time
between gate arrival and pushback).
Delta Airlines (Highest percentage of fuel-efficient aircraft use)
• Of the aircraft Delta operated at SEA in 2021, 16% were highly fuel-efficient, such as
Airbus A220s, A330neos, and A350s, compared to other high-operation carriers who
achieved closer to 7%.
FLY QUIET AWARDS
Port staff developed the annual Fly Quiet awards in 2005, with input from a citizen advisory
committee, to increase airline and pilot awareness of aircraft noise impacts on local communities.
Fly Quiet was included as a continuing noise program measure in the most recent Part 150 Noise
Study update completed in 2014.
Fly Quiet recognizes airlines based on the following criteria: 1) the sound levels of their
operations using four of the Port’s noise monitors, 2) success at flying within the noise abatement
flight procedures, 3) adhering to SEA’s ground maintenance engine run-up regulations, and 4)
limiting noise levels during late-night hours at SEA. Using these scoring criteria, two airlines are
recognized as the highest achieving carriers, and a third airline is recognized as having made a
significant improvement over the previous year.
Spirit Airlines
• Top scoring Fly Quiet airline for operations in 2021
• Remarkably low takeoff noise utilizing the quiet Airbus A32neo.
Frontier Airlines
• High scoring airline with consistently lower noise levels than other domestic carriers
• Operate the quiet Airbus A320neo
EVA Airways
• Most improved Fly Quiet score for operations in 2021.
• Partnered with Port staff to lessen their noise in response to the Late-Night Noise
Limitation Program
• Changed to the quiet Boeing 787 in response to Program outreach.
ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND
The Port has recognized environmental excellence among its business partners as early as 2010
with the Aviation Environmental Excellence and the Maritime Green Gateway awards. Under the
new Sustainable Century Awards, both divisions accept nominations for projects, processes, or
actions that promote sustainability leadership in the following categories:
COMMISSION AGENDA – Briefing Item No. 11b Page 5 of 6
Meeting Date: April 26, 2022
Template revised September 22, 2016.
• Environmental Performance
• Environmental Education and Outreach
• Environmental Innovation
• Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (New)
• Equitable COVID Pandemic Recovery (New)
The Aviation division also uses airport operational system data to recognize airline emission
reduction efforts in the following categories:
• Greatest use of airport ground power systems (New)
• Highest percentage of fuel-efficient aircraft use (New)
A panel of Port staff review and determine award winners using established criteria for each
category. Awards in nomination-based categories depend on the strength and quantity of
nominations received. As a result, the Port may not announce awards for each category every
year.
NEXT STEPS
Port staff will host a celebratory awards luncheon on May 26, 2022, from 12:00-1:30 PM at the
Airport’s International Conference Center for our award winners. Port Commissioners and other
Port leaders attend to present commemorative plaques, learn more about their
accomplishments, and celebrate with attendees.
Concurrent with the luncheon, Port staff will launch a publicity campaign acknowledging this
year’s award winners through Port media outlets (i.e., website, social, digital publications).
ATTACHMENTS TO THIS BRIEFING
(1) Presentation slides
PREVIOUS COMMISSION ACTIONS OR BRIEFINGS
September 22, 2020 – Announced 2019 award winners (item #7a)
Environmental Excellence:
• Maritime: SSA Terminals, Dirt Corps LLC, Orcasound Hydrophone Network,
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (Honorable Mention), Just Health Action
(Honorable Mention)
• Aviation: Alaska Airlines, HMS Host, Whidbey SeaTac Shuttle, Seattle Chocolate
Fly Quiet:
• Southwest Airlines, SkyWest Airlines, Frontier Airlines
COMMISSION AGENDA – Briefing Item No. 11b Page 6 of 6
Meeting Date: April 26, 2022
Template revised September 22, 2016.
January 14, 2021 Bellwether Report – Communicated plans to pause awards in 2021 and
update awards program for 2022
December 10, 2021 Bellwether Report – Communicated proposed award program changes
for 2022
