Birse Rail - Environment

Birse Rail is committed to conducting all its operations in an environmentally and socially responsible manner.

It recognises the potential impact of its business activities on the local environment and sets clear objectives to minimise this impact and continually improve its environmental performance.

Birse Rail’s Environmental Management System is structured to ensure that all materials and services purchased and all activities undertaken by the organisation fully comply with current legislation, company environmental targets and contract specifications. Environmental performance is continually monitored and reviewed to ensure that all activities are carried out with all due consideration for the environment.

Birse Rail’s key environmental objectives are to:

Minimise waste through re-use and recycling
Prevent pollution incidents
Reduce the effects of noise, dust, disturbance and inconvenience arising from its activities
Minimise the use of energy and new raw materials
Conserve and enhance the local environment
Minimise disturbance and disruption to the local community

Sustainable Solutions

At the outset of every project Birse Rail seeks to identify designs, construction techniques and materials that offer the most sustainable solutions taking into consideration the whole life-cycle of the scheme.

This was evidenced in 2009 when Birse Rail was awarded the Environmental Sustainability award at the Network Rail Partnership Awards for its Stoke Gifford Embankment Stabilisation project.

The Environmental Sustainability Award recognises organisations that have displayed exemplary behaviour in making sure that environmental considerations have played an important part when undertaking projects or general work practices on or near the railway.

The embankment stabilisation at Stoke Gifford involved works to a 500m section of track to prevent a temporary speed restriction being imposed. The sustainable design solution utilised unprecedented volumes of recycled ballast products.