The public rail transport service provided by Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat Valenciana, in accordance with its commitment to carry out its activities with the utmost respect and protection for the environment, has had an Environmental Management System certified by AENOR since 2010, in accordance with the international environmental management standard UNE-EN ISO 14001, both in the Metrovalencia and Alicante TRAM areas.
The accreditation of this certification involves:
- Strict compliance with current environmental legislation.
- A reduction of electricity, water, fuel and raw material costs.
- Savings in the treatment of emissions, discharges and waste, through reduction targets.
- Optimising the use of increasingly scarce natural resources.
- Improved relations with management, suppliers and customers.
- A decrease in the number of certain insurances.
- Legal exemptions in some cases.
- An improved image in the eyes of customers and society.
- A boost in the return on investment: Streamlining and saving.
Every year, FGV establishes objectives and actions for environmental improvement in order to reduce the consumption of raw materials and waste generation. Over the last few years, some of the actions that have been carried out have included:
Energy saving measures
- Installation of photovoltaic panels on the roofs of all FGV rolling stock workrooms, with an accumulated generation until 2020 of more than 33,000 MWh.
- Installation of solar thermal panels for the production of domestic hot water.
- Installation of skylights on the roofs of the FGV workrooms in order to promote the use of natural lighting.
- Development and implementation of the efficient driving guide in FGV-Alicante.
- Replacement of lamp posts and lamps with more efficient ones.
- Optimisation of outdoor lighting by extending the use of sundials and timers in the lighting of stations and surface station stops.
- Protocolisation of the use of diesel heating in underground workrooms.
- Implementation of electrical energy saving measures for air conditioning.
- Reprogramming of the ATO (Automatic Train Operation) gears that regulate the movement of Metrovalencia trains according to energy saving criteria.
FGV’s electricity consumption indicator has been reduced by more than 16% over the last 10 years.
Water saving measures
- Water recycling in train and tram washing facilities, with 60 percent of the water used being reused.
- Installation of aerator filters in washbasin taps with savings of up to 50% in the water used.
- Installation of timed showers in changing rooms
- Installation of meters at certain points in FGV’s internal drinking water network in order to monitor and control water consumption.
FGV’s water consumption indicator has been reduced by 50% in the last 10 years.
Measures to replace the use of polluting raw materials with others that are more environmentally friendly.
- Use of water-based paints instead of solvent-based paints in the painting of trains and trams.
- Use of biodegradable greases instead of conventional greases in maintenance activities.
- Substitution of the use of solvents in the machine for less polluting fluids (water-based, biological cleaning).
- Substitution of refrigerant gases in air conditioning equipment for others that are less harmful to the ozone layer and have a lower greenhouse effect.
Implementation of paper saving measures
- Protocols for efficient paper use.
- Substitution of paper communications and printouts for digital communications and electronic documents.
FGV’s paper consumption indicator has been reduced by more than 40% over the last 10 years.
