In pursuit of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), nations are growing more conscious of the importance of implementing SDGs and adopting various tools and frameworks to advance environmental and human development. Current study aims to investigate the environmental impacts of airport ground operations through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and was conducted on three different Ground Power Units (GPU) namely, diesel, biodiesel, and electric-powered by adopting a system boundary of cradle-to-gate, using SimaPro version 9.4 software and adopted a CML Baseline V3.09 EU25 characterization model. Results show that the highest environmental impact was caused by diesel-powered GPU, followed by the biodiesel-powered GPU. At the same time, the electric-powered GPU contributed to lower environmental impact in comparison. The Abiotic Depletion (AD) in the diesel, biodiesel, and electric-powered GPU in a respective manner was (in kg Sb eq, 0.196, 0.196 and 0.162), global warming (kg CO2 eq of 1142, 1130 and 1044), Ozone Depletion Potential (ODP) (kg CFC-11 eq of 0.0003, 0.0001 and 0.0001), Human Toxicity Potential (HTP) (kg 1,4-DB eq of 516.49, 510.96 and 549.29), Freshwater Aquatic Ecotoxicity (kg 1,4-DB eq of 441.56, 463.22 and 605.91), Terrestrial Ecotoxicity (kg 1,4-DB eq of 2.74, 2.31 and 2.35), Photochemical Oxidation (kg C2H4 eq of 0.609, 0.70 and 0.545), Acidification (kg SO2 eq of 11.01, 11.23 and 10.11) and Eutrophication of (kg PO4 eq 3.432, 3.459 and 3.2311). Batteries, diesel, aluminium, wheel rims, and synthetic rubber were the main contributors to these environmental impacts. It was concluded that lead-ion batteries are a good replacement to lithium-ion batteries due to their lower impact. Similarly, switching to stationary GPUs rather than mobile, can contribute to lowering impacts as the wheel rims in mobile GPUs are the main contributors to overall environmental impact of airport ground operations.
