Sustainability and social value in rail

Rail offers value to society in many different ways. We connect communities, improve the quality of life near stations, and offer skilled and important work. But there’s more we could be doing. A more strategic approach to social sustainability would increase rail’s positive impact. In 2024, the social sustainability team worked with rail companies to help fill some of the gaps.

Making our industry more attractive to young people

Perhaps the first way to improve our social impact that springs to mind is routes to employment in our industry. We know we serve an inclusive society. Our workforce needs to reflect that. Reaching out effectively to young people is a vital part of what we need to do. This is not only because the age profile of our industry has an above-average proportion of those who are middle-aged and older. It’s also because young people are often not aware of the many different careers that rail offers, or how interesting and satisfying those careers can be. Young people often think we’re a boring, dirty, or unpleasant industry where they wouldn’t want to work. Others may not even be aware of rail and the career opportunities we offer.

This is bad for both rail and society. We’re missing out on new talent that our industry needs, and society is getting less positive impact from us than it could. So, the social sustainability team has been running projects to address these issues.

Improving skills for rail

One project is called ‘The Talent Foundry’. In 2024, this involved four pilot projects with RSSB members GTR, Northern, EMR, Arriva RL and Alstom. The aim was to improve social mobility. 80 young people who met the criteria joined an intensive programme of exercises, mentoring, and site visits before developing final presentations about sustainable solutions for rail.

This project is continuing in 2025, with new activity involving Porterbrook, Transpennine Route Upgrade, HS1, and Arriva RL. With our industry partners we want to reach 1,000 young people this year. We want them to see rail as an important industry that needs their help and ideas to advance sustainability.

Another social sustainability project involving young people is called ‘Skills Builder’. This explicitly targets young people via schools. Rail organisations use the ‘Skills Builder Essential Skills Framework’ when running projects with young people in schools. It helps their outreach be more effective. Five rail organisations were involved in the first stage: Freightliner, Northern, Volker, Arriva RL, and Alstom. We’re applying the learnings from 2024 to improve the programme for the 10 companies we want to engage this year.

Social value for those already working in rail

But social sustainability isn’t restricted to increasing the social mobility of young people or the attractiveness of the rail industry as a career. There are many points at which the rail industry intersects with other parts of society.

Railway Mission is a Christian faith-based charity. It offers independent, confidential, and impartial pastoral care to the railway community and members of the public affected by rail operations. In 2024, we worked with them to quantify the financial value of the social value it creates through its work. We focused on metrics around stress and anxiety management, trauma support, and support for employees affected by colleague illness. Our estimate is that Railway Mission generates £1.8m of social value each year, a sizeable contribution.

Shared concerns with social housing

We’ve recognised that we share many areas of common concern with housing associations. These properties are often near railway stations. This led to research for the Sustainable Rail Executive by the Housing Association Charitable Trust (HACT), outlining what those common concerns are. We’re looking forward to the joint projects we will be running with HACT as a result, and the increased social value that will be generated.

Social value from the grassroots

Not everyone who wants rail to be better works in or lives near railway stations. Community Rail Network is a growing grassroots movement. It has 75 locally-based community organisations and 1,300 station volunteer groups. These work with local authorities, rail companies, educators, and community partners. Together, they improve social inclusion, sustainable travel and tourism, health and wellbeing, and local economic development around the rail network.

We gave them free consultancy support about the social value they create. This helps them formally report benefits and build stronger business cases or campaigns. These activities show rail is already generating substantial social value. There’s room for more, so we’re excited to see how these efforts will grow in 2025.