The EU’s goal set by the European Green Deal is to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Railways are an essential component for transport decarbonisation and while technological developments would help rail to become more competitive and attractive, significant investment would be needed in the coming years to implement the successful outcome of EU-Rail innovations. In order to achieve this ambitious goal, exploring ways to unlock new financing sources and mechanisms to support sustainable railway development is of key importance.

Key expected outcomes of this Research and Innovation Actions shall include the development of new knowledge with the identification of the key challenges, drivers, and expected measurable outcomes/benefits of implementing the new concepts of environmental economy. More specifically, the studies can include:

• Identifying strategies to leverage green bonds and sustainability-linked financing instruments for railway projects. This includes investigating solutions for an increased use of “carbon credits” by rail companies as a means to generate revenue and contribute to meeting climate targets in Europe.
• Researching and provide recommendations for standardised methodologies for measuring and verifying greenhouse gas emission reductions from rail investments to facilitate access to carbon markets and results-based climate finance. Consideration of EU Taxonomy, as well as in-depth clarification of avoided emissions from modal shift should be part of the research.
• Develop reporting guidelines enabling the alignment with Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directives (CSRD) regarding the climate finance instruments.
• Analysis of current climate financing criteria and provide recommendations for bridging the gaps and better accommodate rail projects in order to encourage the investment and use of low-carbon transport modes. Provide where relevant policy recommendations.

Scope:

The study should aim to provide actionable recommendations to help railways to access the growing pool of climate finance to support their transition to low-carbon, climate-resilient transport system , and can include the following:

• Conducting a comprehensive review of existing green financing instruments and their applicability to the rail sector, identifying key barriers and opportunities for increased uptake.
• Analysing the investment criteria and processes, and identifying strategies for an increased utilization of carbon credits by rail companies, as means to offset emissions, generate revenue, etc. This includes the investigation of innovative approaches to aggregate and scale up smaller rail initiatives, to meet minimum investment thresholds for climate finance. Explore the possibility of innovative financing structures as well that blend public, private and climate-specific funding sources to maximize investment in low-carbon rail infrastructure and operations. The study shall provide actionable and data-driven recommendations for the rail industry, to assist them in their decision making towards identification and implementation of decarbonization strategies capturing sustainable finance opportunities.
• Providing guidelines/recommendations for harmonising processes for monitoring, reporting and evaluation across European rail companies of accurate gas emissions measurements. The aim of these is to enable the progress towards achieving the decarbonization goals, while providing clear, easy to follow instructions regarding: regulatory requirements; access to financing channels; integration of climate-related considerations into corporate strategy and operations.
• Investigating the contribution and opportunities of climate finance instruments in enabling the transition towards rail passenger and freight transport from other less green transport modes, as a key step in achieving the EU green deal objectives. Provide recommendation for bridging the gaps in terms of policies, regulations, and incentives fostering the investments and use of low-carbon transport modes and in particular for rail fostering the market take-up of novel technologies and solutions into the existing European rail network and systems.

Gender dimension

In this topic the integration of the gender dimension (sex and gender analysis) in research and innovation content is not a mandatory requirement.