OREANDA-NEWS. October 05, 2009. Representatives of RZD were awarded the Environmental Olympus award in the transport category for the company’s adoption this year of an Environmental Strategy up to 2015, reported the press-centre of Russian Railways.

The award was established in 2003 by the Urban Environment Research and Design Institute and the magazine Territory and Planning. The prize is awarded for green achievements in the real sector of Russia’s economy. Tackling environmental problems is one of the priority areas of RZD’s work. In 2009, the Russian Railways Environmental Strategy was established for the period up to 2015, and with an outlook up to 2030.

The points covered in the Environmental Strategy are used as a basis for setting requirements on all areas of environmental protection activities conducted by subsidiaries and sub-divisions of RZD, including the establishment of structures and functions of natural protection services, the formation of procedures and regulations for their interaction, planning and joint realization of natural protection activities, environmental training, and monitoring and control in the field of security, protection and prudent use of the environment. The main aim of RZD’s environmental activities is to protect the health of people and of nature. To achieve this goal, the following strategic goals have been set:

to reduce the company’s negative environmental impact by 35% by 2015, and by 70% by 2030;
to introduce effective resource-saving environmental technologies and environmentally clean materials, and ensure the prudent use of natural resources;

to reduce the energy intensity of transportation: to reduce the electricity consumption of train haulage by 14.4%, and fuel by 9.1%;

to improve environmental security and social responsibility in the company’s work.

The company is also implementing an investment project in 2009-2011 entitled Ensuring Environmental Security. Through environmental measures carried out under the investment project in 2009, the company aims to reduce its environmental footprint relative to 2008 in the following ways:

to cut emissions of harmful gases into the atmosphere by 5%;

to reduce the release of insufficiently cleansed waste liquids to surface water bodies by 10%;

to increase decontamination and recycling of waste in technological processes by 2% of the total waste volume.