Euro star to drastically reduce plastic waste under new sustainability targets

LONDON: Euro star, the high-speed train operator between the UK and mainland Europe, has set itself a new 10-point plan to fully incorporate sustainability into its business. The new plan targets energy efficiency and reducing plastic waste as key components to making further progress.

This includes an ambition to reduce all plastic usage and paper ticketing by 50 percent over the next two years. To kick start this journey it has already eliminated the use of plastic straws on board and in business lounges, which builds on a growing anti-straw campaign in the UK.

Cutting all waste is also important to the company’s transition to sustainable practices; it plans to increase recycling rates and continue diverting all waste from landfill.

In more modest ambitions, it will reduce energy usage to operate trains by 5 percent by 2020 and commit to finding alternatives to fossil fuels on train journeys by 2030. Its major UK facility will also be run on renewable energy.

The new targets build on its Tread Lightly programme, in operation since 2007, designed to reduce its carbon footprint and support the Paris climate change agreement.

The company has already made progress to changing the way it operates having already reduced its carbon emissions by 32 percent over the past eight years. It has also cut waste by 50 percent over the same period.

Nicolas Petrovic, Chief Executive of Eurostar, said, “Given the scale of the challenge facing the environment, we are now setting stretching new targets. High speed rail plays a pivotal role in encouraging the switch to more sustainable modes of transport and we are committed to increasing our energy efficiency and reducing our waste across the business”.