Circular practices in the railway and ways forward - REUSE Project final Report

This report addresses the challenges and opportunities the railway industry is faced with when trying to shift from linear towards a more sustainable circular economy (CE).

In the first part of the report, fundamental CE principles are presented, building upon the theoretical notion of circularity. The overall perspective is given through the literature review; first of strategic documents such as EU policy documents and the standpoint of the scientific community in terms of sustainable design. The concept of green public procurement (GPP) is outlined as one of the significant enablers of the CE.

The second part of the report summarises the output of the primary research, presenting the perspective of the rail industry. The research, in the form of 16 structured interviews, was conducted among railway stakeholders, representing 12 businesses from 11 European countries. It has been realised that the vast majority of interviewees support the idea of the CE, and in particular of the reuse of key raw materials, as they are aware of the challenge of the limited amounts of natural resources, the high environmental footprint that linear economy is leaving behind, and the economic potential that remains untapped with the disposal of materials after the primary life cycle.

The concluding part of the report is devoted to presenting the best practices implementing CE principles, offering the readers possible answers to the question, “where and how to start implementing the CE?”