Stagecoach SW launches Green Week
Stagecoach South West today announced plans for its seventh annual Green Week programme with a call for joint action to tackle the growing challenge of climate change.
The company, which operates bus services across Devon and into Cornwall and Somerset is planning a series of events between 1 and 5 June.
During the week-long programme of activities, part of a wider Stagecoach Group initiative, Stagecoach South West will encourage employees and customers to continue driving forward the green agenda through the Group’s new five-year Sustainability Strategy.
This year’s Green Week incorporates World Environment Day on Friday 5 June – a widely celebrated global day for positive environmental action when people from all walks of life can come together to ensure a cleaner, greener outlook for future generations.
Stagecoach Group’s 38,000 employees in the UK and North America will also look ahead to the company’s stretching environmental targets over the coming five years, with additional measures being put in place to enable Stagecoach to further reduce its carbon footprint.
Earlier this year Stagecoach launched its new five-year strategy, Shared responsibility, shared future, which has been produced in partnership with the Carbon Trust and sets out a package of investments at the Group’s bus and rail businesses.
It follows a 30% reduction in Stagecoach Group’s carbon intensity since 2007-08 and the achievement of previous targets 12 months ahead of schedule.
In 2013-2014, Stagecoach had a total carbon footprint of 1,563,000 tCO2e, a water footprint of 835,000 m3, a waste footprint of 10,200 tonnes and a waste recycling rate of 77%
By April 2019, the Group is aiming to:
- reduce buildings carbon emissions by 7%
- cut like-for-like fleet transport carbon emissions by 2%
- lower water consumption by 9%
- achieve a waste recycling rate of 83%
Stagecoach Group has already been awarded the prestigious Carbon Trust Standard for measuring, managing and reducing its global carbon footprint, becoming the first public transport operator to have its boundaries certified outside of Europe.
Stagecoach’s annual Green Week – this year with the theme of Getting Greener Together - aims to raise awareness of environmental issues among staff and passengers through a series of events.
The activities taking place in the South West include:
- In partnership with SITA, a recycling and resource management company, we are introducing a revamped recycling scheme for the Exeter depot, the largest depot in Stagecoach South West. The scheme will ensure a much higher level of segregation of dry mixed recyclables from general waste, helping us work towards the 2019 recycling target of 83%
- In partnership with Heart of Devon Tourism and Green Books we will be blogging about two green walks in East Devon that can be accessed by our bus services. The blog piece will be published at www.heartofdevon.com/blog on Monday 1st June and people can download PDFs of the walks. In addition, for a limited time only, they will be able to purchase a copy of ‘Explore Green Lanes in South & SE Devon’ at a special discounted rate.
On World Environment Day (5th June) customers visiting our Travelshops at Exeter and Paignton can pick up a packet of mixed flower seeds to brighten up their gardens and encourage all important pollinators such as bees. Staff across our depots will also receive packets of seeds.
Staff in North Devon, who in their own time have created a wildlife haven at the depot in Barnstaple, will receive a donation of £100 towards its upkeep. Over the last few months they have landscaped an area to one side of the depot, sown thousands of seeds, put up bird feeders and built several nest boxes out of old pallets, one of which is now home to a pair of blue tits and four chicks.
Stagecoach South West Managing Director Michael Watson said: “All of us – individuals, businesses, communities and public authorities - have a shared responsibility to protect our environment. We know from our own experience of running bus services that climate change is increasingly impacting our daily lives through more extremes of weather.
"We are committed to playing our part in facing up to the challenge. Despite the good progress we have made at Stagecoach in recent years, we know there is work still to be done.
"We hope that Green Week will help give a real focus for how we can all work together to protect our planet for future generations. We need to make changes not just for one day or one week, but for the long-term."
For further information about Stagecoach Green Week visit www.stagecoach.com/greenweek
