Aeroporti di Roma (ADR) is one of Europe’s leading airport operators, managing and developing Rome Fiumicino and Ciampino airports. Rome Fiumicino ‘Leonardo da Vinci’ is a strategic gateway to Italy and one of the world’s leading airports, ranked in the global top 10 as well as one of only 12 airports to hold a Skytrax five-star rating worldwide. In 2025, Fiumicino exceeded 50 million passengers for the first time, further consolidating its role as a major global hub.

Within this context, circular economy has emerged as a key lever to enhance competitiveness while reducing environmental pressure, particularly for complex infrastructures such as airports, integrated systems where passenger flows, airlines, commercial activities, construction sites and operational services converge. For ADR, circular economy is therefore not a standalone initiative, but a strategic operating model connecting infrastructure development, daily operations and stakeholder behaviour.

This vision has been reinforced by the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by ADR in 2025 with the Italian Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security, which recognises the airport ecosystem as a platform for advancing circular economy models. For Rome Fiumicino airport, this translates into concrete experimentation, integrating circular principles into projects, operations and user-facing solutions that generate measurable results and useful insights for the wider sector. In other words, a ‘circular hub.’

Embedded in the infrastructure
At Rome Fiumicino, construction and refurbishment projects are conceived as evolving systems rather than static assets, prioritising redevelopment (brownfield) over demolition where feasible. Design integrates Italy’s minimum environmental criteria and international standards such as LEED and BREEAM, embedding modularity and reversibility to facilitate adaptation and material recovery. ADR already certified more than 75 percent of Rome Fiumicino’s terminal infrastructure under LEED or BREEAM, extending asset life and reducing reliance on new resources.

Runways, aprons and roads increasingly incorporate recycled materials, including bituminous conglomerates with high recycled content and aggregates from demolition. In 2025, recycled materials accounted for over 50 percent of those used in completed works. On-site separation of excavation and demolition materials enables their reuse in foundations and non-structural works, reducing waste and the need for raw materials. Dedicated processing plants within the airport perimeter support this closed-loop approach. These practices are embedded in technical specifications through defined thresholds that balance recycled content with performance and safety requirements and are already applied across major projects at Leonardo da Vinci airport.

Daily operations at a circular airport
Alongside infrastructure, circular economy extends into daily airport operations. At Fiumicino, waste management is a core operational process designed to maximise efficiency and the quality of waste separation across the airport.

Within terminals, differentiated collection systems are supported by dedicated recycling centres and supervised by specialised operators. A tariff model combining a fixed component with a variable fee linked to the production of unsorted waste incentivises improved separation at source by commercial operators, directly aligning environmental performance with cost efficiency. This system is progressively enhanced through digital monitoring tools that track collection, transport and disposal, improving data quality and operational control.

Water circularity is also embedded in operations. Fiumicino airport is equipped with an advanced system to recover and treat non-potable water from a biological treatment plant and the Tiber River, significantly reducing the use of potable water for thermal systems, irrigation and sanitation. Yearly, over 70 percent of water consumption at Fiumicino is non-potable – saving the equivalent of 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Behavioural change complements these technical solutions. To address the challenge of correct waste separation in a complex, multicultural passenger environment, ADR has introduced smart bins in Fiumicino’s terminals. Developed with an Italian start-up, they use artificial intelligence to recognise waste in real time and provide feedback, improving separation quality while generating data to support analysis and targeted awareness campaigns. Following successful pilots, which recorded a 60 percent reduction in plastic sorting errors, the system is now being scaled up as a permanent element of ADR’s operational model.

Refillable drinking fountains offer passengers a practical alternative to disposable plastic bottles, while collaboration with retail operators promotes more circular packaging solutions. Partnerships with organisations such as ‘Too Good To Go’ have enabled, since the launch of the initiative and up to Q1 2026, more than 10,000 meals to be saved at Rome Fiumicino, corresponding to an estimated avoidance of nearly 30 tonnes of CO₂ emissions, while reducing food waste and maximising the value of resources.

Across both infrastructure and operations, digitalisation acts as an enabling layer, enhancing traceability, accountability and decision-making. By improving visibility over material and waste flows, ADR is progressively optimising resource use, reducing operational costs and identifying additional recovery opportunities across the airport ecosystem.

Moving beyond a linear economy
At airport scale, the economic rationale for circularity is clear. The systematic use of recycled materials in infrastructure works reduces procurement costs and dependence on raw materials, while high-quality waste separation and increased recycling rates lower disposal costs and enhance the recovery of valuable fractions. These efficiencies contribute to a more robust operating model in which environmental performance and financial discipline reinforce each other.

For Rome Fiumicino, circular economy represents a forward-looking growth strategy rather than a marginal optimisation. By redesigning infrastructure and operations as regenerative systems, ADR strengthens resilience and competitiveness in an increasingly resource-constrained world, supporting long-term value creation while decoupling growth from environmental impact.