Sustainability at TPE

Our approach to sustainability is defined by understanding our contribution to society, the economy, and the environment, and what is materially important to our colleagues, our customers, and our stakeholders. A key focus is to prioritise where our efforts can have the biggest positive impact to meet customer needs, levelling up and connectivity, delivering environmental, social, and financial sustainability across TPE operations.

Through this understanding we have developed our strategy in line with the rail industry sustainable development principles and UK policy goals for greener transport and modal shift.

The structure of our strategy sets out our priority areas under four pillars of sustainability:

Carbon and air: this considers our carbon footprint, resilience to climate change and impact on local air quality

Beyond carbon: this is focused on zero waste to landfill, embedding circular economy thinking into our operations; reducing disturbance and impact on water resources, whilst setting out our good for nature ambitions

Our people: this takes forward our goals for a diverse and inclusive workforce that can reach its potential, whilst developing succession plans and competency frameworks through proactive career development opportunities 

Our customers and communities: this embeds an approach for ensuring an accessible train service, bringing communities to the heart of our thinking and delivering on a positive contribution to society through social value

Medium to long term objectives with milestone targets are established within this strategy, which will be progressed via actions in our annual sustainable development plan to ensure continual improvement. Progress updates against our targets will be published within our annual sustainability report.

Our objectives and targets continue to be subject to review considering the prevailing Sustainable Rail Strategy for the rail industry.

Our journey

Did you know?

• Since 2019/20, we have reduced our total carbon (scopes 1, 2, and 3) impact by 15%. Scope 1 emissions are associated with the fuels that we consume such as diesel and natural gas. Scope 2 emissions are associated with the purchase electricity that we consume. Scope 3 emissions are associated with indirect emissions that occur in our value chain.
• Our Nova train fleet, which includes bi-mode and electric trains, has helped to improve our carbon impact per vehicle kilometre travelled by 17 percent since 2019/20.
• A reduction in our gas and electricity consumption, driven by lighting and heating improvements and replacements, has helped reduce our non-traction carbon impact by 27% since 2019/20.
  
   

Below you will find a copy of our Sustainability Report, which summarises and highlights our achievements from last year against our four pillars of sustainability (Carbon & Air, Beyond Carbon, Our People and Our Customers and Communities). 

Download our 2023-2024 Sustainability Report

Download our 2022-2023 Sustainability Report

Full details of our Sustainability policies can be found in the following PDF documents:

• Asset Management Policy October 2023 (Accessible format)
• Energy Policy October 2023 (Accessible format)
• Environment Sustainability Policy October 2023 (Accessible format)