Sustainability

Whether you are transporting export logs to port, commuting to work in our larger cities, passing the Southern Alps or sailing through the Marlborough Sounds by choosing KiwiRail's freight and passenger services you are making a sustainable choice. Rail is a key part of New Zealand's integrated transport system providing a fuel efficient and low carbon means of moving goods and people.

Sustainability for KiwiRail starts with financial sustainability. By providing an accessible and reliable rail service we will be helping to reduce the transport industry's overall impacts on the environment and communities.

• As a freight service KiwiRail helps your business to reduce the carbon footprint of your products.
• For local and international tourists KiwiRail is a significant part of New Zealand's tourism industry we are able to provide you with more sustainable travel options by which to enjoy our country.
• In Auckland and Wellington we are an essential part of the sustainable transport network helping to alleviate congestion, improve air quality and reduce your personal carbon footprint.

In many ways we are lucky that we have such a key product for New Zealand's future sustainability but we also recognise that we have a responsibility to ensure our operations are continually improved to minimise the impacts on the environment, communities and future generations. To achieve this we have commenced on our sustainability journey in 2010.

As a first step we have undertaken a carbon footprint exercise and we have actions in place to improve our carbon efficiency. We will continue to monitor our carbon emissions on an annual basis to help us understand where we need to make improvements. We are currently developing other sustainability indicators and we will be monitoring our progress against these and reporting on how we get on.

Some of our initial focus areas include:

• Developing systems to enable "live" monitoring of onboard fuel consumption on our Interislander ferries.
• Adding new DL locomotives to our fleet with improved energy efficiency and higher emission controls.
• Introducing GPS to our vehicle fleet to gain a better understanding of opportunities to save fuel.
• Providing recycling facilities at the Wellington Railway Station, onboard the ferries and at the ferry terminals.
• Assessing the type and volumes of waste from infrastructure activities to reduce waste to landfill.
• Reducing electricity usage in our buildings through a combination of staff awareness and improvements to our facilities.
• Reviewing our supply chain and putting in place measures to make more sustainable purchasing decisions.
• Combining our Auckland offices into a single sustainably designed office reducing interoffice travel and the overall impact of our office functions.

KiwiRail has become a member of the Sustainable Business Network to show its commitment to sustainability in New Zealand business.