Porterbrook recognised as a Sustainability Leader
Porterbrook, the rolling stock asset management company, has received Five Stars from Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB) for the second year running, coming first out of six participating Transport and Rail companies in Europe, and placed 17th globally out of 406 participants.
GRESB is an internationally recognised global benchmarking survey which assesses and compares the environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance of real estate and infrastructure organisations annually. Porterbrook has been participating in the GRESB survey for five years, and this year achieved its highest ever overall score (93 out of 100).
In GRESB’s 2020 assessment, Porterbrook scored highly for Leadership and Policies within the Management component, reflecting the strong governance practices across the Group. Within the Performance component, Porterbrook was recognised for its achievements across Energy, Emissions, Waste and Health & Safety.
In recent years, Porterbrook has been investing significantly in zero and low emission solutions for Britain’s railways, including over £1 million to deliver HydroFLEX, the first train in the world to be retrofitted with hydrogen power. The project was delivered in collaboration with the University of Birmingham, and in September 2020 HydroFLEX became the first hydrogen powered train to run on the UK mainline.
Mary Grant, CEO of Porterbrook said: “We are incredibly proud that our achievements and progress across all three pillars of ESG have been recognised by the rigorous GRESB benchmark this year.
“All our stakeholders place a high value on sustainability, from our customers and industry partners to our investors and the travelling public. It is essential that they can track our performance in this way. Porterbrook will continue to put ESG at the heart of all our activities as the UK rail industry goes through significant change”