Green Travel Pledge is the rail industry’s commitment to provide detailed, accurate and reliable data on the carbon emissions of rail journeys so that:​

• The sustainability benefits of travelling by train become clearer and even more compelling;​
• Businesses and their travellers are empowered to make more informed choices;​
• The business travel sector can make data on rail journey emissions easier to access and use at the point of sale;​
• Businesses can accurately measure the emissions of their rail travel to track their progress against sustainability goals.

The pledge will help encourage businesses to modal shift away from car and plane travel to stimulate additional business journeys by train.

It is a rail industry initiative being led by the Rail Delivery Group, in partnership with Great British Railways Transition Team, creating a recognised industry benchmark for carbon emissions.

We are currently developing a new rail carbon calculator which will provide detailed, accurate and reliable data on the carbon emissions of rail journeys to businesses at the point of sale.

This new tool will allow businesses and business travellers to easily demonstrate the green credentials of switching to rail travel from less environmentally-friendly alternatives such as car and plane travel.

If you're a business, travel management company or online booking tool provider who would like access to this data once released, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Currently, we are developing this as a product for businesses, travel management companies and online booking tools.

Therefore, the results will be available via an open API which will then be displayed to business travel customers at the point of sale.

We hope that by showing a reliable and accurate carbon footprint for rail, we can encourage business travellers to switch from less environmentally-friendly alternatives such as car and plane travel.

We are gradually rolling out carbon calculations for rail routes across Britain. We started with provisional figures from London King’s Cross to Edinburgh Waverley as this is a popular route with business travellers and gave an opportunity to compare long distance train, plane and car travel.

We are now focusing on calculating carbon emissions for the top long-distance rail business travel routes. In 2024 we plan to finalise data for all direct rail routes across Britain.

We want to help encourage businesses to modal shift away from car and plane travel to stimulate additional business journeys by train.

Please contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to discuss your involvement with the Green Travel Pledge project.

If you're a business, travel management company or online booking tool provider who would like access to this data once released, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

We are working with carbon emission experts at Thrust Carbon and rail data specialists at Fabrik to compile rail data and use it to accurately calculate rail emissions for all point-to-point rail journeys in Britain.

Data used includes: engine type, fuel type, journey distance, number of carriages, travel class, occupancy and timetable.

To find out more technical detail on how we calculated our preliminary carbon calculations for a journey from London King’s Cross to Edinburgh Waverley, please read Thrust Carbon's blog.

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Current emission measures, such as the one maintained by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (still colloquially known as the ‘Defra methodology’), offer a general average emission figure for all customers on rail services in Britain. However, they do not differentiate between various factors including: different classes of travel, load factor, or electric vs diesel power units.

The ’Defra methodology’ calculates a single emission factor for the average passenger per kilometre, which, while useful for high-level comparisons, does not accurately reflect the emissions associated with individual passengers on specific journeys.

Our Green Travel Pledge methodology fills this gap, offering a more granular and nuanced understanding of rail emissions. It considers the specific characteristics of different rail routes, and allocates emissions to individual passengers based on the following (not exhaustive): number of carriages dedicated to each class, the average load factor for each class, and the volume of trains run on each route.

This approach can provide a more accurate measure of the emissions associated with individual passengers, and can serve as a powerful tool in enabling more accurate reporting on rail emissions for businesses, whilst also shaping strategies for emission reduction in the rail sector.

Our carbon calculations for rail take into account: engine type, fuel type, journey distance, number of carriages, travel class, occupancy and timetable.

No, there are many different methods for calculating carbon emissions for train journeys.

We believe it’s important that the rail industry works from one reliable, accurate and consistent measurement of carbon emissions. That is why we are using granular data to make Green Travel Pledge carbon emission data as reliable as possible.

We plan to roll it out to businesses, online booking tools and travel management companies throughout 2024.

Currently we are only looking at direct journeys i.e. those with no changes. Where more than one train operator runs trains on that route, the data for each will be used to calculate the final figure.

However, in future we plan to include indirect journeys (those with changes), allowing rail users to ‘add up’ their emissions for multiple legs of a journey.

Our methodology uses the number of carriages and number of passengers between any two station stops on a journey and aggregates these. As such, any joining or splitting of trains would be factored into the overall emission calculations for the route as this would alter the number of carriages and passenger load.

Our methodology takes into account the type of train – electric or diesel – operating on specific routes. This allows us to estimate emissions accordingly. Where trains change from electric to diesel (and vice versa) en route, we will take this into account. We are also looking at the feasibility of measuring other fuel types, such as Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO).

At this stage, we will not be factoring in ‘one-off’ train cancellations. We will only factor in changes if they substantially impact the rail timetable.

For these journeys, we are able to identify the emissions for each part of the journey, and as such can calculate the emissions for the entire route, even if the route is partially electric and partially diesel.

Timetables typically change every six months in the rail industry. Our figures and methodology will be updated to reflect any changes made in the timetable to train routes or volumes.