Menu
Project number: 2022-SUS-035

New tool helps industry assess its own performance using the Sustainable Rail Blueprint


The Sustainability Maturity Tool is a self-assessment tool. It helps rail organisations understand what the Sustainable Rail Blueprint means for them. They can also track progress against industry’s sustainability goals and find improvement opportunities.
'The Sustainability Maturity Tool gave us a clear framework for the update of our sustainability strategy.'
Nir Barak
Environment and Energy Manager, Greater Anglia

The challenge

Rail organisations must understand what the Sustainable Rail Blueprint means for them.

All organisations have a different role to play in delivering the Blueprint. To realise an even more sustainable railway, it requires action across all parts of the industry.

At the moment, however, some have a more mature approach to sustainability than others.

RSSB made the Sustainability Maturity Tool to provide support and guidance for members. It helps them understand where they are on their sustainability journey. It also shows them areas that need improvement to align with the Blueprint.

What we did

RSSB created the Sustainability Maturity Tool to help rail organisations understand their role in delivering the Blueprint.

The Blueprint covers 11 sustainability topics. These span emissions, natural environment, and social sustainability.

RSSB based the Sustainability Maturity Tool on a maturity framework covering all 11 topics. It defines different maturity levels from 1 to 5. Using this Tool helps organisations better understand and align with the Blueprint.

In particular, it helps them understand how they are performing. It also helps them find opportunities for better alignment. The Tool presents this as a radar chart to easily show areas of higher and lower maturity.

Organisations can use the Tool over time to track progress. It is available on the RSSB website and is free for members.

Benefits delivered

The Sustainability Maturity Tool supports industry by providing a maturity score across 11 sustainability topics. This helps organisations see how they are performing against the Sustainable Rail Blueprint.

Organisations are using the Tool to:

  • assess their performance against the Blueprint
  • identify improvement opportunities
  • set target levels for future maturity.

Also, the Tool has led to commercial opportunities for RSSB. We can deliver bespoke maturity assessments and action plans for organisations based on the framework.

Heathrow Express are an example. They wanted to better align their sustainability strategy to the Blueprint. They also wanted to understand their strengths and weaknesses. RSSB was able to deliver this work.