Minimising our environmental impact
The use of public transport provides positive environmental benefits. Emissions of air pollutants are lower per passenger kilometre for buses than cars. The use of buses plays a vital role in reducing congestion.
This year we funded a YouGov poll in attitudes to public transport. Conducted earlier this year, results showed that half of the British population are increasingly concerned about environmental issues. Of these people, 61% said that they were considering switching some or all of their car journeys to public transport, or that they already had done so. It also revealed overwhelming support (79%) for more government investment in public transport. Added to this, nearly half of those polled also said they would like to see a public information campaign to explain how people can reduce their impact on the planet whilst travelling.
We have a responsibility to promote the benefits of public transport to both our passengers and potential passengers. However we also have a responsibility to effectively manage the adverse impacts associated with operating our services and to reduce these where we can. Our environmental impacts are summarised below.
| Bus operations have a number of environmental impacts summarised below. | |
|---|---|
| Climate change | Emissions of carbon dioxide from the operation of buses, buildings and staff travel |
| Air quality | Emissions of nitric oxides, particulates, hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide from the operation of buses |
| Use of resources - energy | Use of energy to heat and light depots |
| Use of resources-water | Use of water for domestic purposes to wash buses |
| Waste management | Management of waste arising from our maintenance operations, offices and waste derived from customers on our buses |
We monitor our performance in relation to all the above impacts. We monitor total emissions as well as emissions normalised per passenger journey as this represents the unit of output from the business. The exception to this is water usage which is normalised per vehicle as vehicle washing accounts for the main use of water.
Our environmental management framework
In the UK Bus division we have a well established environmental management framework. Each operating company has a Health, Safety and Environment Manager who is responsible for helping the company achieve improvements in performance. They are supported by the Group safety and environmental functions.
All our operating companies work to minimum environmental standards set by FirstGroup against which they are audited. In addition all our companies are now working towards achieving certification to the ISO14001 environmental management system standard.
Currently ten out of nineteen of our operating companies are certified to ISO14001 with our operations in Glasgow, Potteries and Essex achieving certification this year.