Setting a target of 2030 to go completely green, the Indian Railways has taken several major initiatives towards mitigation of global warming and combating climate change.

Some of the measures to achieve net-zero carbon emission include railway electrification, improving the energy efficiency of locomotives and trains and fixed installations, green certification for installations and stations, fitting bio-toilets in coaches and switching to renewable sources of energy.

Indian Railways has completed electrification of more than 40,000 route km (RKM) (63 per cent of Broad Gauge routes) in which 18,605 km electrification work has been done during 2014-20. Indian Railways has fixed a target of electrification of 7000 RKM for the year 2020-21. All routes on the BG network have been planned to be electrified by December 2023.

Indian Railways has also taken several initiatives to promote solar energy and is trying to produce power from land-based solar installations for running trains. Solar and wind energy will power the railway electricity grid in a big way.

Realising its role in climate change Indian Railways has started other green initiatives like 100 per cent LED illumination of buildings and stations and has also acquired Green Certification from CIII to seven production units, 39 workshops, six diesel sheds and 1 store depot. Also, 14 railway stations and 21 other buildings/ campuses have also been Green certified. Other than this 215 Stations have been certified with Environment Management System (EMS)/ISO 14001.

A total of 69,000 coaches have been fitted with more than 2,44,000 bio-toilets in Indian Railways.