London North Eastern Railway is taking steps to ensure it becomes Britain’s most responsible train operator.

In order to achieve this, any decision that is made takes into consideration the effect of people and places across its network and any environmental impact.

LNER also works with suppliers to push for extra value to customers and communities to which their rail network serves.

Measured as Social Local Economic Value (SLEV), between 2023 – 2024 local communities have benefitted from over £21 million pounds.

This has changed the lives of many who live across the LNER system. This investment in local communities has enabled new jobs to be created, business startups and support to existing small businesses, donations to charities and rail community projects, along with promoting and encouraging innovation.

Looking at the numbers in more detail, £3 million has enabled 665 new full time jobs to be created while over £37,000 has been granted to a variety of local community projects.

This has helped in the creation of 1,362 hours by unpaid volunteers who have worked to reduce carbon emissions by 450 tonnes, while in the process of removing 70,000 long distance car journeys since the pandemic.

There is still over £44 million in the SLEV pipeline that is yet to be delivered to other projects that are still ongoing or who are awaiting funding.

LNERs’ contribution makes up just under half of the overall £44 million, thanks to its close collaboration with its supply chains that has helped to secure and contribute to local economies and communities.

“LNER purchases goods and services from hundreds of suppliers every year. From crumpets for our customers through to the cleaning team who keep our fleet gleaming, the power of our pound is huge. This is the fourth year we have evaluated the social value generated by the LNER supply chain and it’s great to see year-on-year growth in the substantial economic, social, and environmental benefits that have been invested into local communities.”

Anna Barrett, Procurement Sustainability Manager for LNER

“As our working partnership with LNER has flourished, this has delivered, and continues to deliver, social value benefits in numerous areas. We’ve created two new full-time roles in our Yorkshire based LNER account team and we’re looking to offer further training opportunities to local students in part time study, something we did previously in 2022/23. We’ve also increased our usage of public transport, reducing car miles, and impacting our carbon generation, carried out local community litter picks and contracted business from a York-based accounting firm. So, the local community directly benefits through the opportunities offered to us in collaboration with LNER.”

Joe Clay, Associate Consultant at LNER supplier Zinc Consultant