Rail Sustainability Index Project

Rail Sustainability Index project

The Rail Sustainability Index (RSi) is a new tool being designed for and with the global rail community. The previously named ‘SDG Rail Index’ tool will provide the UIC members with a unique rating system and a supportive digital platform based on the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations to assess the performance of each railway based on a selection of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

The Rail Sustainability Index is designed to provide UIC members with:

• a reporting system on each individual company’s and the whole sector’s contribution to the achievement of SDGs, featuring benchmarks and best practices,
• improved access to green bonds and sustainable finance instruments.

What will reporting companies see?

Once the benchmarking calculation is complete, the tool users will be able to see the sector score. The individual company score is issued to all participating UIC members from Leader (A) to Beginner (D). Participants can see their dashboard data and personalised report allowing them to see their relative strengths and weaknesses and therefore plan and target improvements year on year. Both individual company score and dashboard are confidential information that companies can choose to disclose or not.

Each participant is given a badge to make visible their score if they choose to use that in their external or internal communications and reporting.

Example of a Rail Sustainability index individual company dashboard, showing score, level, scores achieved by SDG, average sector score per SDG and overall sector score. With a radar graph showing max values (black), sector values (green) and company values (blue).

By our members, for our members

As part of this global and truly collaborative initiative, all UIC members are invited to take part in the yearly reporting campaign free of charge, planned in early summer and shall receive their scores at the end of each year.

This UIC tool will continue to be up to date, ambitious and relevant through the guidance of the Steering group. This group shall be responsible for deciding any changes and updates/improvements to the tool or methodology of the RSi.

Data provided by members shall be kept in the strictest confidence and only anonymous aggregated data will be shared externally in our annual Global Sustainability Report and related communications.

Global Rail Sustainability Report - 2023

Participating members will also access, through the IT tool, their individual report with detailed results per indicator. This report, released under the same confidentiality rules as those applying to individual scores, is intended to help members better understand how their scores are calculated.

How does it work?

Through a member-led materiality assessment against all 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, 7 key UN SDGs were selected. This established which of the goals were most directly aligned to the activities and applicability of rail and the work of the UIC Sustainability Platform.

• 5 – Gender Equality,
• 7 – Affordable and Clean Energy,
• 8 – Decent work and Economic Growth,
• 9 – Industry Innovation and infrastructure,
• 11 – Sustainable Cities and communities,
• 12 – responsible Consumption and production, and
• 13 – Climate Action.

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Corresponding to these 7 goals, the RSi uses a set of 43 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and more than 50 variables (either collected or calculated and consisting of both quantitative and qualitative indicators).

A weighting has been set for each of the SDGs based on a prioritisation exercise carried out by the working group.

The scoring employs a benchmarking capability developed through benchmark data research. The sector score calculation is based on the average scores of the other members, so that rail companies can compare against their peers globally. As the number and diversity of reporting members will grow, the benchmarking capability will allow comparison between regions and companies carrying out the same activities.

Data is reported over the past three years so that trend and progress can be taken into account in the scoring exercise.

The tool methodology has been reviewed by the World Bank and the future versions of the tool will link to the content of the IRS 30330 voluntary Guidelines for “Sustainability reporting for rail”, currently under development.

UIC members are invited to support this collaborative initiative to make rail’s sustainability credentials visible.

UIC contact

For any further information please contact:

• Rail Sustainability index