Eurostar to plant a tree for every trip through Tunnel
Rail firm boosts Mail campaign by pledging 20,000 a year
EUROSTAR is to plant a tree for every train service it operates – a total of around 20,000 a year.
The scheme will see up to 62 saplings planted every day from January 1 in woodlands across Britain, France, the Netherlands and Belgium.
The cross-Channel operator said the initiative would help to tackle climate change by reducing its carbon footprint dramatically.
It has also promised to remove millions of items of plastic from its train carriages and business-class lounges.
The firm ran a plastic-free return service from London to Paris yesterday to celebrate its 25th anniversary. Passengers were given wooden cutlery, recyclable cans of water, glass wine bottles and paper-based cups.
In promoting its commitment to green causes, Eurostar hopes to cash in on travellers’ growing concerns over the environmental impact of flying – so-called flight shaming, which has forced airlines to announce carbon-offsetting schemes to save face. British Airways plans to offset emissions for all its domestic flights from next year.
Eurostar, which carries 11million passengers a year, claims its highspeed trains create up to 90 per cent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than an equivalent flight. For example, it said a flight from
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London to Paris emits 63.6kg of carbon dioxide per passenger, compared with 4.1kg on Eurostar.
The firm’s pledge follows the Mail’s own Be A Tree Angel campaign to make Britain greener by encouraging readers to plant thousands of trees.
Eurostar said it had already managed to cut its carbon emissions by 40 per cent since 2007.
Chief executive Mike Cooper added: ‘We have always had a strong sense of responsibility for the environment, but as the demand for sustainable travel becomes increasingly critical we believe we can raise the bar. With our environmental ambitions and our tree-planting programme we are providing an attractive, ecofriendly alternative to the airlines.’
Darren Moorcroft, chief executive of the Woodland Trust, said the trees being planted would absorb around 1,000 tons of CO2 during their lifetime. He added: ‘Eurostar’s commitment to plant in celebration of its 25th birthday is a welcome one.’
Eurostar runs passenger trains through the Channel Tunnel, which opened in 1994. It recently invested £1billion in a fleet of Siemens e320 trains, each capable of carrying 900 passengers – twice as many as a jumbo jet – at up to 200mph. Services operate out of St Pancras, connecting London with Calais, Paris, Lille, Lyons, Brussels, Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Seasonal trains also run to Marseilles and the Alps.
Eurostar plans to merge with the European company Thalys, which could enable passengers to travel from London to Germany without changing trains.