THE RAILWAY IS A KEY ELEMENT IN THE RACE TOWARDS A MORE SUSTAINABLE AND MORE ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY MOBILITY. IN ADDITION TO THE PROJECTS AND INITIATIVES THAT PUT IT AT THE CENTRE TO ACHIEVE EMISSION-FREE TRANSPORT OR INVESTMENTS IN R&D&I FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF SUSTAINABLE TECHNOLOGIES, OTHER CONCEPTS COME INTO PLAY SUCH AS THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY, WHICH ESTABLISHES A MORE SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION MODEL, WHERE RAW MATERIALS ARE KEPT IN THE PRODUCTION CYCLES FOR LONGER. AND THE RAILWAY HAS ALSO MUCH TO CONTRIBUTE IN THIS LINEAR TO CIRCULAR PARADIGM SHIFT.
urope as a whole is working towards a new model where sustainability is at the heart of everything. The warnings issued by organisations such as the United Nations (UN) are clear and give little room for action: there is a need to combat climate change, one of the greatest challenges of today’s society, and it must be done now, since the year 2030 is the deadline to mitigate the numerous environmental consequences that reflect in 95% of the cases the impact of activities generated by human factors.
The transport sector plays a decisive role in this joint fight, since it represents a third of the end-use energy and a quarter of the total greenhouse gas emissions, as pointed out by the European Environment Agency. That is why international organisations highlight the role of transport in a sustainable development economy and insist on the importance of committing to mobility models that contribute to reducing the environmental footprint as much as possible. The European Union works along these lines, with projects and initiatives towards a green transition to help achieve the proposed objectives: to be the first climate-neutral continent by 2050.
“International organisations highlight the role of transport in a sustainable development economy to reduce the environmental footprint”
On transport alone, the EU estimates that a 90% reduction in transport-related greenhouse gas emissions is needed by 2050. And it is at this point that railway transport, the mode of collective transport with lower emissions per passenger, comes into play. It emits less CO2 per kilometre travelled, it produces less local pollution and congestion in urban areas, it uses less energy, and its energy is more efficient. Its many advantages from the environmental, structuring and capacity point of view make it key to face challenges such as climate change and the much-needed decarbonisation of transport, both of passengers and goods.
A clear advance for sustainability not only in the railway industry, but in the rest of the sectors, as well as in society as a whole, is the commitment to the Circular Economy, one of the pillars of the economic and environmental policy of the European Union. In addition to the benefits of a paradigm shift from a linear economy to another one where resources are kept for as long as possible, the circular economy has the potential to create some 700,000 jobs in Europe, of which at least 10% could be generated in Spain, according to data from the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO).
Indeed, this Ministry launched the Spanish Circular Economy Strategy ‘Spain 2030’ (EEEC),” which aims to leave behind the linear economy and promote a new model of production and consumption in which, in the Ministry’s own words, “the value of products, materials and resources are kept in the economy for as long as possible, in which the generation of waste is minimised and where full use is made of waste whose generation could not have been avoided”.
“Meeting the challenge of achieving the transition towards the circular economy requires the collaboration, participation and involvement of the whole society, not only of the Public Administrations, but also of all economic sectors (manufacturing, production, distribution and waste management), which must incorporate innovation as a key element for the achievement of the proposed objectives. Furthermore, the Strategy foresees that the social players and, especially, consumers and citizens, will play a central role”, explains the Ministry.
This way, the EEEC is a starting point to contribute to Spain’s efforts to achieve a sustainable, decarbonised, resource-efficient, and competitive economy. With its sights set on 2030, the initiative was born with the following objectives:
• To reduce by 30% the national consumption of materials in relation to GDP, taking 2010 as the reference year.
• To reduce waste generation by 15% compared to what was generated in 2010.
• To reduce the generation of food waste in the entire food chain: 50% per capita reduction at the household and retail consumption level and 20% in the production and supply chains from 2020, thus contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
•To increase reuse and preparation for reuse to reach 10% of the municipal waste generated.
• To improve water use efficiency by 10%.
• To reduce the emission of greenhouse gases to below 10 million tons of CO2 equivalent.
These objectives, to be met by 2030, aim to respond to the following challenges: protection and improvement of the environment; preventive action; decarbonisation of the economy; the principle of “the polluter pays”; health protection; rationalisation and efficiency; cooperation and coordination between Public Administrations; public participation; sustainable development, solidarity between people and territories; integration of environmental aspects in the decision making; improving the competitiveness of the economy and generating quality employment.
The Spanish Circular Economy Strategy will be carried out through the implementation of different three-year action plans. The first of these, the First Circular Economy Action Plan 2021-2023 (CEAP 2021-2023), mainly includes the actions of the Central Government to make progress towards this new model.
Besides, the period of action coincides with the measures adopted for the recovery of economic activity after the crisis caused by COVID-19, where the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR) has become the instrument that articulates the set of reforms and investments aimed at facilitating an economic recovery. Such economic recovery must, among other matters, contribute to making a reality the transition towards a more sustainable growth model. This Plan also acts as a connecting vehicle to access the European funding committed to the Next Generation EU instrument and it links with the principles of the European Green Deal, including its commitment to decarbonisation and the Circular Economy.
The role of the railway industry in the Spanish Circular Economy Strategy
The railway sector is present in different sections of the First Action Plan within the Spanish Circular Economy Strategy. Specifically, the Railway Infrastructure Manager has collaborated with 6 initiatives within the different lines of action.
Secondary Raw Materials Line of Action
In the section ‘Reintroduction of materials in biological and technological cycles’, the railway has a leading role in the point ‘Promotion of the use of sustainable materials and management techniques in railway stations’. It indicates that the Railway Infrastructure Manager, Adif, “will promote that in the architecture projects of stations sustainable materials and management techniques be used based on the following requirements: use of proximity materials, use of recycled materials, use of recyclable furniture and materials, and that the wood or any forest product used must be certified”.
Consumption Line of Action
The Ecomilla Project is a commitment to sustainable mobility in urban environments that aims to promote intermodality and facilitate the door-to-door journey of the traveller to or from the station, and also for this route to be made with an energy-efficient means of transport with low CO2 emissions.
‘Development of a catalogue of environmental and social criteria for procurement in the field of railway infrastructures’. ADIF is working on the creation of a catalogue with social and environmental criteria (lower environmental impact; water saving and efficient use of it, energy, and materials; environmental cost of the life cycle; generation and management of waste; usage of recycled, reused, or ecological materials; greater use of energy from renewable sources, reduction of GHG emissions, carbon footprint; etc.) to be applied during the different phases of the public procurement process. The objective? To facilitate the inclusion of good environmental and social practices in public procurement processes, and in line with the changes introduced by the new Public Sector Contracts Act.
‘Comprehensive programme for the social recovery of disused railway assets, generating value through entrepreneurship or public service projects’. The objective of this point is to encourage reuse for them to re-enter the productive cycle of the more than 400 disused buildings that ADIF has, such as old stations or warehouses.
Waste Management Line of Action
Within the section ‘Measures to improve the prevention and management of waste streams’, there is talk of an effective management of surplus land from railway infrastructure works to favour the environmental recovery of degraded environments or their reuse in other works. Thus, it is explained that some works carried out by ADIF and ADIF Alta Velocidad generate a high volume of surplus land that cannot be used in the work itself and are considered construction and demolition waste. What this section wants to promote is the reuse of surplus land for the conditioning of degraded surfaces, in works of ADIF or a nearby environment, in accordance with Order APM/107/201720, thus contributing to savings and efficiency in the use of natural resources.
Along the same lines, there is another action to develop measures to increase the reuse of topsoil in the restoration and landscape integration work resulting from railway projects’. Thus, with the aim of using this topsoil, a slowly renewable natural resource, ADIF establishes a series of premises to be adopted according to the execution phase of the works, both in the construction projects of the railway infrastructure and in the environmental monitoring programmes of the works. This way, at the beginning of the works the existing topsoil will be collected from all the surfaces to be occupied by the works, either definitively or permanently. During the execution, these topsoil stockpiles will be kept in the appropriate conditions for their conservation. Following completion of the work, it will be reused for the restoration and landscape integration of the auxiliary areas.
On the other hand, and to comply with the objectives of the Spanish Circular Economy Strategy for the year 2030 and to position Spain as an international benchmark in the waste management, recycling and reuse, last March the Strategic Project for Economic Recovery and Transformation (PERTE) of Circular Economy was approved, an initiative proposed by the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO). The objective of PERTE is to accelerate the transition towards a more efficient and sustainable production system in the use of raw materials, as well as to increase the competitiveness of industrial sectors and business in general. Every productive sector has a place in PERTE, whose planned investment includes aid worth 492 million euros and with which it is expected to mobilise resources of more than 1.2 billion until 2026. A large part of this amount of money will go to sectors that address sustainability challenges, such as textiles, plastics, and capital goods for renewable energies, as well as to promote eco-design, waste management and reuse, and the digitalisation of companies to improve competitiveness and innovation.
PERTE is focused on 2 lines of action that host 18 instruments of action. These lines are divided into actions on key sectors: textiles, plastics, and capital goods for the renewable energy industry. And cross-sectoral actions to promote the circular economy in business, which includes aid aimed at projects to promote the circular economy in any sector that requires support to complement its efforts.
On the other hand, initiatives with a wider scope of action also find in the Circular Economy an indispensable area of work. This is the case of the Safe, Sustainable and Connected Mobility Strategy 2030, es.movilidad, which will guide the actions of the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (MITMA) in terms of mobility, infrastructure and transport in the next 10 years.
There are three pillars or basic principles that underpin the Mobility Strategy. Safety, to guarantee greater protection of people and goods, improving standards and reducing accidents; connectivity, understood from 3 aspects: digitalisation and technological progress, connectivity with Europe and the world and multimodal connectivity; and sustainability in the social, economic, and environmental areas, prioritising daily mobility, economic-social equity, energy efficiency, and the fight against climate change.
It is precisely in this third point where the circular economy has a place. This is because the promotion of clean modes, climate resilience and universal mobility, together with the circular economy, play a prominent role to minimise the contribution of passengers and goods transport to polluting emissions.
“In March 2022, the Strategic Project for Economic Recovery and Transformation (PERTE) of Circular Economy was approved”
