Ministry of Railways, with a goal of transforming Indian Railways into Green Railways by 2030 has taken a number of major initiatives towards mitigation of global warming and combating climate change. Railway Electrification, improving energy the efficiency of locomotives & trains and fixed installations, green certification for installations/stations, fitting bio-toilets in coaches and switching to renewable sources of energy are parts of its strategy of achieving net-zero carbon emission.

Indian Railways (IR) has completed electrification of more than 40,000 Route km (RKM) (63% of BG routes) in which 18,605 km electrification work has been done during 2014-20. Previously, only 3,835 km electrification work was completed during the period 2009-14. Indian Railways has fixed a target of electrification of 7000 RKM for the year 2020-21. All routes on BG network have been planned to be electrified by December 2023. Indian Railways is focusing on electrification of last-mile connectivity & missing links. With this in mind, 365 km major connectivity work has been commissioned during COVID period.

IR has also taken a number of initiatives to promote solar energy. Till date, 100 Mega Watt (MW) of solar plants have been commissioned on roof-tops of various buildings including 900 stations. Besides this, IR is trying to produce power from land Based Solar installations for running trains. Railway has 51,000 hectare of the land potential of installing 20 GW land-based solar plants. The Solar power so generated will be fed to Central / State Grid or directly to 25 kV AC traction system.  Railway Energy Management Company Limited (REMCL), a Joint Venture Company of Indian Railways (49 % Equity) and RITES Limited (51 % Equity), has been mandated for the proliferation of taking up a land-based project.

Realizing its role in climate change IR has started other Green Initiatives like 100 per cent LED illumination of buildings and stations. Railways have also acquired Green Certification from CIII to 7 Production Units (PUs), 39 Workshops, 6 Diesel sheds and 1 Stores depot. 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.