Our Climate Change Strategy
The following Climate Change Strategy was prepared by FirstGroup in March 2007 at the financial year end 2006/07. It is a starting point to setting out our commitment to support the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from the surface transport sector. It outlines our targets to reduce carbon dioxide emissions over the short and long term and the specific measures and plans, which will help us to achieve them.
- This strategy focuses on our main carbon dioxide emissions and is part of a much broader environmental programme covering atmospheric emissions, energy, resource use, waste and biodiversity. Details of our environmental programme can be found in our annual Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) report.
The performance data contained in this document represents our starting point and will be updated on an annual basis in the CSR report, which should be referred to for current progress.
FirstGroup plc (FirstGroup) recognises that climate change has become a pressing social issue. Recent surveys have indicated it to be a high priority for the majority of our stakeholders, and institutional investors are giving the issue a progressively higher profile. Surface transport contributes 25% to the UK's carbon dioxide emissions and in the United States, transportation activities account for around 32% of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion (this figure includes aviation fuels). Emissions from the sector continue to grow.
As a public transport operator we can offer significant opportunities to reduce emissions by attracting more people to use public transport thus reducing reliance on the car. This is central to our vision to Transform Travel. As a company we wish to lead the way in transforming how people travel and how they feel about public transport by delivering the highest levels of service and customer satisfaction.
However, we also recognise that we are significant contributors to carbon dioxide emissions and that it is our responsibility to reduce these to as low a level as practicable. At the same time we must maintain the quality and reliability of our services to support continuing passenger growth. In turn, this will support the reduction in emissions from the sector as a whole.