Greater Anglia works with the Carbon Trust towards an even greener future for rail in East Anglia

September 23, 2020

Travelling by rail is now even greener after figures revealed that Greater Anglia reduced its total carbon emissions by 11 per cent overall last year.

This has prevented 13,570 equivalent tonnes of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global climate change, being released into the atmosphere.

This is enough to provide 2,297 homes with electricity for one year and would take 224,000 tree seedlings growing for 10 years to remove this much CO2 from the atmosphere.

Greater Anglia has worked with The Carbon Trust to quantify its environmental impact and understand its carbon emissions, as part of an aim to become even greener and more sustainable.

Rail is already recognised as being the most environmentally friendly form of transport apart from walking or cycling.

The report shows that the operator also put 67 per cent less waste into landfill and reduced hazardous waste by 50 per cent in the last year.

Greater Anglia’s Environment & Energy Manager, Stephanie Evans, said: “The programme to decarbonise the National Grid by using renewable energy sources has helped us to achieve this reduction in our emissions we’ve seen this year.

“Overall, carbon emissions caused by running the trains accounts for around 92 per cent of our total emissions, so small improvements in fleet energy efficiency or a move towards energy efficient driving can also really help us to reduce our overall emissions.

“Our new trains are more efficient and produce less particulate pollution than our old ones which will help to make rail travel in East Anglia an even more environmentally friendly option.

“I’m pleased to have completed this first piece of work with The Carbon Trust, to understand where we are now, and to plan where we need to get to in the future.”

The report also highlighted that Greater Anglia has seen gas consumption increase and could seek to improve the accuracy of water monitoring at stations and depots.

The company now plans to investigate these findings and introduce measures to tackle them.