ATM Impact on Climate Change – EU-Wide Advantages & Opportunities

1. Single Market Access (450+ million citizens)

• Harmonised ATM procedures under the Single European Sky (SES) enable an R&I project to design, test and roll-out climate‐smart solutions once, then deploy them seamlessly across 27 Member States plus EFTA/EEA and Associated Countries.

• One certification & validation route (EASA/Eurocontrol) replaces 27 national ones, accelerating time-to-market for new environmental performance-monitoring toolkits, multi-scale air-quality models, contrail prediction services, etc.

• End-users (ANSPs, airlines, airports, drone/U-space operators) gain pan-EU access to the solution, enlarging the addressable market and strengthening the business case for commercial exploitation.

2. Cross-Border Collaboration & Knowledge Exchange

• The call sits inside the SESAR 3 Joint Undertaking, whose membership already spans more than 200 organisations from 30+ countries – a ready-made network for building multinational consortia.

• Mandatory interaction with ANCEN, EASA, Clean Aviation, KAIROS, ALARM, CREATE, CLAIM, etc. offers:

• Shared datasets (e.g. Eurocontrol NM trajectories, Copernicus climate re-analysis, IAGOS in-situ data).

• Joint workshops and living labs that pool expertise in meteorology, AI, propulsion, social science and policy.

• Consortia can distribute tasks according to regional strengths (e.g. Nordic excellence in contrail physics, Mediterranean expertise in dust-storm modelling, Central European leadership in U-space services).

3. Alignment with Core EU Policies

• European Green Deal & Fit-for-55: Directly targets aviation climate footprint (CO₂ & non-CO₂). Results can inform ETS, ReFuelEU Aviation and Sustainable Mobility Strategy.

• Digital Europe & EU AI Act: Promotes trustworthy AI for real-time trajectory optimisation and hazard nowcasting.

• EU Space Programme: Leverages Galileo high-accuracy positioning and Copernicus Sentinel data for contrail detection and 3-D hazard mapping.

• Climate Adaptation Strategy: Supplies evidence for resilient airport/ATM infrastructure planning.

4. Regulatory Harmonisation & Standard Setting

• Close cooperation with EASA and ICAO-CAEP allows project outputs (novel metrics, environmental performance indicators) to feed directly into upcoming EU Implementing Regulations and global SARPs.

• Early participation in SESAR Performance Partnership ensures that validated methods become part of the European ATM Master Plan, guaranteeing unified uptake across Member States.

5. Access to Europe’s Innovation Ecosystem

• Synergy with 3 000+ Horizon Europe R&I projects, 19 Copernicus DIAS platforms, EIT Climate-KIC accelerators and national testbeds (e.g. DLR, ONERA, NLR, CIRA, INTA).

• Open Science requirements increase visibility; open-source libraries (e.g. pyModeS, OpenContrail) can be reused and improved, lowering development costs.

• Large-scale demonstrators can tap EU-managed Digital Twin of the Earth (Destination Earth) for extreme-weather digital replicas.

6. Funding Synergies & Blending Instruments

• Innovative financing mix possible:

• Horizon-JU lump-sum grant covers R&I risk.

• Connecting Europe Facility (CEF-2 Transport) can later co-fund operational deployment in ATM network.

• InvestEU & EIB Green Loan windows for large-scale roll-out of green ATM services.

• LIFE Programme for noise & air-quality pilot actions at airports.

• Regional dimension: ERDF/Interreg can support living labs in cohesion regions, easing access to complementary infrastructures.

7. Scale, Impact & Long-Term Sustainability

• EU network effects: Each 1 % optimisation in flight efficiency achieved Europe-wide saves ≈1.5 Mt CO₂/year – multiplying the climate benefit versus national pilots.

• Harmonised metrics enable comparable environmental dashboards across all ANSPs, fuelling transparent performance-based regulation.

• Project outcomes can serve as blueprints for global implementation via ICAO, positioning Europe as standard-setter.

8. Scope-Specific EU Opportunities

1. Noise & Air-Quality Pollutants

• Combine pan-EU sensor grids (EUROCONTROL ADS-B, EEA AQ e-Reporting) to build continental exposure maps.

2. Atmospheric Physics for Aviation

• Use Copernicus C3S datasets to build climate-change scenarios consistent with IPCC-AR6, covering all European climatic zones.

3. Multi-Scale Air-Quality Systems

• Integrate European supercomputing (EuroHPC) for real-time, high-resolution 4-D chemistry-transport models.

4. Environmental Toolkit incl. New Entrants

• Align with EASA’s Environmental Portal to create a single EU repository of performance models for hydrogen/electric aircraft, drones and HAO.

5. Novel Metrics Validation

• Leverage mandatory Mode-S/EPP data that Eurocontrol collects across the network to validate proxies at scale.

6. Integrated Hazard Platforms

• Federate pan-European MET providers via SWIM standards, ensuring data-sharing interoperability.

7. Contrail Research

• Exploit EU satellite constellation (Sentinel-4/5, MTG-I) for humidity profiling; coordinate with Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service for public data continuity.

9. Tips to Maximise EU Value Added in Proposal

• Map consortium partners to EU Centres of Excellence and reference European Technology Platforms (ACARE, Clean Hydrogen, AI4EU) to demonstrate critical mass.

• Embed plan for standards contribution (EUROCAE WG-C, ASD-STAN) and regulatory uptake.

• Include strategy for transnational living labs in at least three climate regions (e.g. Baltic, Alpine, Mediterranean) to prove generalisability.

• Outline pathway to integrate results into SESAR Deployment Manager’s Common Project 1/2, ensuring operational uptake EU-wide.

Bottom Line: By operating at EU scale, a project under call HORIZON-SESAR-2025-DES-ER-03-WA1-1 can harness the Single Market, common regulations, world-class research assets, and a portfolio of complementary EU funding to deliver aviation climate-impact mitigation tools that are bigger, faster and more impactful than any national endeavour could achieve.