23.07.07
Going greener
According to a Department of Trade and Industry report, transport has been the biggest single energy user in the UK for the past 17 years, accounting for 34 per cent of final energy use in 2003. But how green is the Tube compared to other modes of transport?
“It’s a green form of travel,” says Charlotte Simmonds, Tube Lines’ environment manager. “The Tube has a carbon efficiency of 56g C02 per passenger kilometre, about half that of an average loaded car.”
But there’s room for improvement. “The work Tube Lines does is about bringing the Tube into the twenty-first century, recognising improvements can be made, ensuring people continue to use the Tube and that more people do. That’s why we’ve added extra carriages and are going through the line upgrade. It’s all about keeping people off the roads.”
A passionate environmentalist, Charlotte was recently named one of the top 35 women in UK business under the age of 35 by business journal Management Today. She has been with Tube Lines since 2004, when she was appointed its first corporate environmental advisor and became environment manager in 2006, a role which gives her responsibility for the company’s environmental sustainability.
Tube Lines takes its environmental responsibility seriously. They must comply with all applicable UK and European environmental legislation and other requirements including London Underground environmental standards.
As part of their tender, contractors are asked to provide evidence that they are considerate to the environment; identifying environmental impacts of their work and how they implement both corrective and preventative action to improve their environmental performance.
On site, contractors are required to have environmental plans or method statements describing how they manage their environmental performance.
Tube Lines also use internal audits and inspections to monitor sites for legal compliance and against the five key areas of environmental impact identified under Go Green, the environmental management system which was launched in April 2005 and gained ISO 14001 certification six months later.
The five key areas- noise, waste, pollution, wildlife and energy- - provide a focus for Tube Lines’ actions to reduce their environmental impact.
One of the Underground’s biggest environmental impacts is energy consumption, particularly the electricity used to run trains. By building energy-efficient design into the upgrades of the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines, this is being reduced.
“Noise is a big issue for us because we work predominantly at night in the middle of London,” says Charlotte. One of Go Green’s targets for 2006/2007 is to reduce the noise complaint rate during works by 10 per cent.
Tube Lines is also working with the Carbon Trust to calculate its carbon footprint so that it can be reduced and at looking at how the work it does could be affected by climate change before the end of its contract.
“We’ve looked at how adverse weather affects our assets and activities,” says Charlotte. “We’ve identified 200 threats and opportunities such as how the weather affects track alignment and we are working to quantify the cost of these impacts-where are the greatest threats caused by climate change, how does that affect our performance and what do we need to do about it?”
Clearly, Tube Lines is helping to make the Tube’s credentials even greener.
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