The Sustainable Rail Programme

Background

The SRP’s purpose is to tackle sustainable development on behalf of the industry at a cross industry system level, focussing on those areas which require significant cross-industry coordination or involve significant government and policy input.

To do this, the SRP has indentified five roles which underline how the programme delivers its activities.

The Programme’s early work focused on agreeing the key strategic cross-industry issues and reviewing cross-modal performance. These fed into the industry’s first sustainability review and conference in 2007. The SRP then  undertook foresight research to inform the development of long-term strategy and identify key strategic actions to help the industry to develop more sustainably.

Most recently, the SRP facilitated the development of the Rail Industry Sustainable Development Principles which represent the core values of the industry. They cover social, economic and environmental issues and provide the key platform for the future work of the SRP, helping to embed sustainability throughout the industry.

The SRP supports the industry by:

• Building a shared understanding among industry and stakeholders
• Supporting Industry Strategy Development
• Supporting the measurement of performance
• Supporting implementation
• Supporting the industry to influence policy and legislation