The green scheme is run by PayByPhone which provides alternative and easier ways to pay for parking at railway stations across all of Greater Anglia's car parks.
The rail operator has removed 71 pay and display machines from 52 of its NCP-operated car parks throughout the east of England and has seen eight trees planted in the Amazon rainforest.
The award-winning ‘Meters for Trees' carbon footprint reduction initiative is the first of its type in the UK and began its green work back in June 2019 and has seen participants of the scheme cut the number of parking machines replacing them with PayByPhones cashless parking payment technology.
One tree is donated by PayByPhone to each client for the removal of every 10 parking machines and offsets 1 tonne of CO2 through Portel-Pará REDD which is a Verified Carbon Standard audited project for the Amazon rainforest which aims to fight deforestation.
Simone Bailey, Greater Anglia's Asset Management Director, says:
“Rail is already the greenest way to travel but we are always looking to become even more sustainable, in line with the industry's aim to become carbon neutral by 2050.
“Joining PayByPhone's Meters for Trees, we are taking another step forward in making our customers' journeys as simple, clean and green as possible.”
The first year of the green initiative has seen 50,000 miles saved due to not having to maintain the machinery and collect cash from them. PayByPhone will offset a massive 9 tonnes of CO2 for Greater Anglia. As part of the rail operator's commitment to reducing CO2 it also recently reported that its passengers are making huge savings in CO2e when travelling with them to London.
Further advancing the benefits of Meters for Trees, the PayByPhone stickers for the Greater Anglia contract are ReActivair ‘pollution eating' signs which are made from naturally occurring materials. The impressive ReActivair ground-breaking technology sees PayByPhone's signage use energy from sunlight to break down pollutants and odour molecules in the air in the area where it is located which also aids are quality whilst reducing pollution.
Rebecca Maisey, UK Client Director for PayByPhone, says, “We are delighted Greater Anglia has joined Meters for Trees. Each time we welcome a new client to the programme, we are contributing to a cleaner environment and better local air quality. At a time when the need to combat deforestation has never been more urgent, Meters for Trees offers parking operators a straightforward way to create a more environmentally sustainable future.”
Tin find out more about Meters for Trees, please visit: http://www.metersfortrees.co.uk
Why not plant some trees in the car parks themselves as well? Not only would they absorb carbon as they grew but would also provide some wildlife habitat in one of the most biodiversity-depleted environments in the UK: asphalt covered car parks.
What an absolutely stupid idea. No thought given to the millions of people who choose not to have a mobile phone. They are now effectively barred from parking at a Greater Anglia station car park.