Eurostar, the high speed trains that whisk passengers from London to Paris at 186 miles per hour through the Channel Tunnel, launched a series of new green measures this week in a effort to reduce their carbon footprint by a quarter by 2012.

The service, which they already claim to be 10 times greener than traveling to Paris or Brussels by airplane, introduced a ten step eco-plan to reduce their emissions on November 14 – the same day as the service’s main hub switched from London’s Waterloo Station to the refurbished St Pancras Station.

The green schemes have included the introduction of e-tickets and bar code ticketing – which can be downloaded to cell phones to save paper; only recycled paper will be used where paper use in unavoidable; staff uniforms will be refurbished and recycled, train air-conditioning refrigerants will be replaced by less environmentally damaging chemicals (seven years before the EU law requiring them to do so kicks in), and all waste on board, and at stations, will be fully separated and recycled.

Food served on board the trains will now be sourced from local suppliers in the UK, France or Belgium wherever available, including organic products and Fairtrade goods for overseas supplies, and food will now be served with biodegradable or recyclable cups, plates and napkins.

Eurostar have also committed to green up their stations and depots – this will include switching to green electricity suppliers, reusing water from their ‘train wash’ and installing further grey water collection systems.

The train service also announced that as well as reducing their carbon emissions, they will also offset the remaining emissions, at no cost to passengers, to make the service fully carbon neutral – which means, apart from swimming across the English Channel, taking the Eurostar is now without doubt the greenest way to get from the UK to mainland Europe.