Northern up for top environmental gong at National Rail Awards next month

The National Rail Award for Environmental Excellence is awarded to the organisation leading the way in decarbonising the rail economy and minimising its environmental impacts.

In the march towards its environmental goals, Northern has collaborated closely with its employees, the relevant trade unions and its suppliers, finding innovative solutions that help its employees and customers reduce their impact on the environment. 

This includes measures such as: ‘waste standardisation’ – the use of colour coded bins and skips in all of Northern’s depots to ensure waste is consistently disposed of correctly; and a partnership with BIFFA to track waste levels so that collections are organised in the most efficient way.

Train presentation teams are incentivised to recycle as much paper at they can by Northern making a donation to a local charity of its employees’ choice for every recycling skip filled. Similarly, customers were encouraged to recycle their waste at the end of their journey, with a specific push on newspapers through the ‘When it’s read, it’s Blue’ campaign.

Mike Roe, safety and environment director at Northern, said: “We are committed to being the train operating company making the most positive contribution to environmental sustainability.

“To help us achieve this, we operate an environmental and energy management system across the whole of Northern – which ensures we harness opportunities to enhance and protect the environments we influence and control.

“We are incredibly proud of the strides we have made as a business in recent months and to be shortlisted for a National Rail Award is a real testament to all employees across the business doing their bit to help us achieve our environment goals.”

The winner in the Environmental Excellence category will be announced at the awards ceremony in London on Thursday, 15 September.

Northern is the second largest train operator in the country, with nearly 2,000 services a day to more than 500 stations across the North of England.