New £20,000 award launches for sustainable travel

Rural and urban UK businesses behind sustainable travel initiatives are being invited to enter the new Eurostar Ashden Award for Sustainable Travel, which will include a prize fund and other benefits aimed at raising awareness of the winning projects.

Eurostar, the high-speed passenger rail service, is funding the award in a bid to showcase local, sustainable travel initiatives in the three European countries it operates in. It has teamed up with the Ashden Awards, which runs one of the world’s leading green energy awards, to seek out the winning initiatives.

"Sustainable travel is a vital part of moving to a lower carbon world," said Sarah Butler-Sloss founder director of The Ashden Awards. "We are looking for businesses, NGOs and local authorities doing amazing things in environmental sustainable travel in local and rural areas or towns. It could be cycling, walking or public transport."

Entry criteria
Projects will be chosen based on their innovative qualities, but will also have to be proven and measurable.

"They will need to have been up and running for at least a year," said Butler-Ross.

Tread Lightly
Eurostar is funding the Sustainable Travel Award through 'Tread Lightly’, the environmental programme through which the rail company is tackling the carbon footprint of its own operations and those of its passengers. Yesterday, the company unveiled how it had cut passenger journey emissions by 25 per cent since launching the programme in 2007 and was setting new targets to reduce operational and supply chain emissions by a quarter by 2015.

"At Eurostar, we have long championed the switch to more sustainable modes of transport leading by example through our own Tread Lightly programme," said Eurostar chief executive Nicolas Petrovic. "With our new, approach, we will continue to minimise our own impact and at the same time help our customers play their part, both at home and whilst travelling."

The Eurostar Ashden Award for Sustainable Travel will be calling for entries from July to October 2011. Winners will be announced in May 2012 at an awards ceremony in London.

Ashden winners
Winners of the 11th annual Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy were named at an awards ceremony last night. They were The Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT), , Midlands Wood Fuel Ltd, Severn Wye Energy Agency and Transition Town Totnes. The overall UK Gold Award winner was Hampshire-based housing association, Radian.