MITIE has helped Virgin Trains cut its carbon emissions by over seven per cent and in so doing gain BS EN 16001 accreditation for its energy management. 

The train company used MITIE, a leading FTSE 250 strategic outsourcing and energy services company, to evaluate and improve its energy usage at 25 railway stations and offices around the UK. 

As a result Virgin Trains has reduced its emissions for stations and offices by 7.2 per cent since 2008. 

MITIE helped Virgin Trains by gathering energy data from their stations and Offices, across some 25 five sites located throughout the UK. Once MITIE had gathered sufficient data for gas, electricity and water consumption, going back to January 2008, the information was fed into a sophisticated software package, eSight, which identified where energy was being consumed. 

MITIE’s energy management team was then able to identify what financial savings and CO2 emission reductions could be made providing payback times calculated in months. The work was carried out as part of MITIE’s CarbonCare offering which offers clients a roadmap for implementing carbon saving strategies that save money. 

The seventeen Virgin Trains stations that were assessed as part of the BSI verification process contained a mixture of retail outlets, multi-storey car parks, all with extensive lighting. The stations also had many different third party tenants on site including retailers which made the data collection much harder. Many of the stations were consuming energy 24 hours a day which made the task of implementing energy reduction programmes quite a challenge.

Steve Robinson Safety & Environment Systems Manager from Virgin Trains said: “We couldn’t have gained this accreditation without MITIE’s ability to capture and then analyse where our energy was being consumed, and then suggest and implement strategies to save energy.” 

Once the data was correctly collected and interpreted, MITIE implemented its solutions. These included installing smart wireless controls to reduce lighting consumption, installing timed control push buttons in waiting rooms to ensure the heating turns itself off after 15 minutes and the optimisation of heating, ventilating and air conditioning plant. 

Richard Smith, MITIE Energy Services Director said: “The partnership demonstrates just how much train companies, public sector clients and other firms with large facility portfolios can achieve through good energy management. “

-ENDS-

For further information, contact: 

Bell Pottinger 
Chris Watts 
cwatts@bell-pottinger.co.uk 
020 7861 2859

Notes for editors

What is MITIE?
We’re the strategic outsourcing and asset management company.

What does that mean in practice? We manage facilities, energy and properties for our clients across the UK and beyond.

We work with our clients in three ways; some take full advantage of our whole range of expertise, others may only need one aspect of what we do:

Strategy and consultancy
+ Facilities and project management
+ Service delivery

Our strategic input can add value at the highest level by helping clients to manage their assets, while our practical management expertise can save customers money and reduce their carbon emissions. We work with a vast number of clients in every industry across both the public and private sectors and deliver the broadest range of services that can be found in one place: from integrated facilities management to engineering maintenance to lifecycle energy management and much more.

There’s a lot more to MITIE than you probably think. We’re a big company with big ambitions – a leading FTSE 250 support services business, with more than 61,000 people, revenues of £1.9bn, and a reputation for being the best.

Visit us at www.mitie.com