Social value report
Introducing our 2025 social value report
As the NRL Group continues to grow, so does our commitment to creating meaningful, positive change for the people, communities and sectors we support. Social value is embedded in how we operate, shaped by our values and brought to life by colleagues across our businesses. From mental health and wellbeing to charity support and sustainability initiatives, contributing to the wider good remains central to who we are.
This year’s social value report reflects the collective efforts and partnerships that helped us make a real difference in 2025, including community engagement and actions to reduce our environmental impact. We’re proud to share the progress achieved so far and the continued commitment that drives our work forward.
“I’m pleased to be introducing the second iteration of our social value report, that reflects on the progress we have made in 2025. It’s rewarding to see the willingness of colleagues across the NRL Group to get involved with these initiatives and help us shape how we support our communities, people and planet.”
– David Redmayne, NRL Group CEO
Supporting our communities
From mentoring women to supporting young people with STEM education and employability skills, our colleagues across the NRL Group played a key role in helping communities thrive throughout 2025. Their collective efforts spanned 35 social value activities and reached more than 4,300 people across local initiatives and events.
Colleagues also used their charity days to volunteer, fundraise and back meaningful causes. This included colleagues in our Rail operations team organising the second annual charity golf day that generated over £2,200 for Barnsley Independent AlzheimersAlzheimer’s and Dementia Support – a charity very close to our hearts. With company match funding gifted to colleagues in exchange for their fundraising and volunteering time, together these actions reflect our ongoing commitment to making a positive difference where it matters.
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Match funding donations made in 2025£21167
Match funding donation made to charities£39667
In match funding claimed across our initiativeTake a look at our 2025 social value report
Learn more about the initiatives and collective efforts that shaped our social value activity in 2025 by accessing the full report.
Supporting our people
How we look after our office-based colleagues and our contracting teams that deliver vital safety work to our clients out on the track, is important to us. As a business, we’re always keen to invest in initiatives and support programmes that ensure we can help them both inside and outside the workplace. This includes access to training through apprenticeship routes and mentoring, in addition rewarding colleagues through well-deserved promotions.
We’re proud to have people in our teams who are worked with us for decades, and it’s important that we recognise this commitment through our long service awards – which allow colleagues to celebrate with well-earned meals and trips away with family and friends.
Championing mental health in rail sector
Our commitment to ensuring no mental health or wellbeing topic is off limit, continued to shape how we operate as a business through 2025 – and we’re pleased to have launched a new wellbeing app that provides resources to our contractors directly through their mobile devices.
In 2025 we also celebrated 5 years since colleagues in our Scotland-based operations team first volunteered to train as Mental Health First Aiders. Over the years they’ve supported colleagues compassionately, generously giving their time to benefit others. Mental health awareness remains a vital element of annual safety stand down days, which bring contracting teams together to take time out to reflect on our key priorities.
Supporting our planet
How we operate and deliver our services is a crucial aspect of the way in which we do business, because we all have a responsibility to reduce our impact on the environment.
We’re committed to identifying environmental improvements, and it was a driving factor in our decision to become a carbon neutral business in 2021. Each year we make this recommitment, calculating our carbon footprint with One Carbon World and offsetting any emissions we cannot immediately eliminate. Involvement in climate change projects across the world allow us to invest carbon credits to retain the Carbon Neutral International Standard – something we’re extremely proud to hold.
Introducing electric maintenance equipment to our operations
In recent years we’ve continued to look at how we can change over to electric vehicles in our fleet, to deliver our services trackside with less carbon emissions. In 2025 we were delighted to extend this key focus by introducing new electric hand grinding equipment following an extensive trial. These machines are cleaner and more environmentally friendly, and form just the beginning of plans to advance fully electric-powered alternatives.
Take a look at our 2025 social value report
Find out more about what our colleagues achieved last year and the collective impact we’ve made on our communities, people, and the planet by downloading the full 2025 social value report.
For transparency AI has been used during the generation of this content and report, with every care taken to verify its accuracy.