The environmentally-friendly way to travel to France

If you’re looking for a more sustainable way to travel to France, Eurotunnel Le Shuttle is the answer. We are the environmentally-friendly way to travel to France by car, and this page will show you all the ways we achieve this.

Reduce your carbon footprint by travelling with us

Your carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gases you generate (including carbon dioxide and methane). We’re all trying to keep ours as low as possible of course, making more sustainable choices like keeping a check on energy use in our homes and how many miles we travel using various forms of transport. 

Transport is one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases and other harmful pollutants but travelling to France with Eurotunnel is the best option for reducing your carbon footprint.

The Channel Tunnel and its rail transport system have some intrinsic environmental advantages which help us achieve this:

  • A fully underground link that does not emit sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides gases which are particularly harmful for public health and are specific to maritime transportation
  • Electric locomotives that generate a low level of atmospheric pollution and only marginal greenhouse gas emissions 
  • Eurotunnel Shuttles are being upgraded to accurately read the CO2 emissions for each crossing 

73x less CO2e

In terms of your carbon footprint, travelling with Eurotunnel is better than going by ferry as it emits 73x less carbon dioxide. CO2 contributes to your carbon footprint, so this is an important factor to reducing its size.

To give you a clear example, if you were to travel by car on the ferry, it would produce 147kg CO2e. If you drive your car onto one of our shuttles and travel to France, it’s only 2kg CO2e, a big difference. 

Support for electric vehicles (EVs)

Travelling by EV is even kinder on the environment, so we want to support our customers doing so as much as we can. We have EV chargers on site for customer use. All completely free to use, our chargers support Tesla as well as most other models (check electric vehicle charging availability).

A car boarding a Eurotunnel shuttle

Calculate your carbon saving

Eurotunnel shuttle
2kg CO2
on average per crossing
Calais-Dover ferry
147kg CO2
on average per crossing
Calculate the average amount of CO2e emissions saved when choosing to cross the Channel with Eurotunnel Le Shuttle.
kg of CO2ekg of CO2e
By choosing to cross the Channel with Eurotunnel, you can reduce CO2e emissions by kg of CO2ekg of CO2e.
Moreover, thanks to its geographical location, Eurotunnel Le Shuttle terminal is just off the M20 motorway which can save up to 25 km to your journey. With less fuel consumption, customers benefit from a further reduction of 5 kg of CO2 emissions.
CO2e emissions for ferry & Eurotunnel: Calculation was performed by the Carbone 4 company. Approach was based on GLEC Transport Framework recommendations (compatible with GHG Protocol). CO2e emissions include emissions from fuels (all types of fuel), from electricity consumption and emissions during fuel production (known as “upstream emissions”)

Less carbon with Eurotunnel Freight

Just like a car carrying passengers, Eurotunnel shuttles also help other modes of transport carry freight across the channel. However, we are constantly striving to improve our environmental performance and produce less carbon and other harmful emissions.

10% drop in CO2e emissions

A truck using Eurotunnel will emit 12x less CO2e than if it completed its journey on a ferry. Using a 1090 km journey as an example this represents a 10% drop in CO2e emissions.

Freight customers can easily calculate the savings madeo on a journey when travelling with a Eurotunnel shuttle compared with a ferry using the online carbon counter.

As well as a truck crossing the Channel with Eurotunnel emitting 12 times less CO2 than with the ferries, a 25 km journey from Folkestone to Dover saves a further 20 kg of carbon emissions each way.

A Eurotunnel freight shuttle

Samphire Hoe nature reserve

Samphire Hoe

Eurotunnel has, for the 15th time, been awarded the highly prestigious Green Flag Award® for the 30-hectare Samphire Hoe nature reserve at the foot of the beautiful White Cliffs of Dover. Visit the Samphire Hoe website to find out more.

Carbon neutral in the UK

A view of Eurotunnel Le Shuttle Terminal from the air

Since 2018 every electric KWH used by Getlink in the UK is carbon neutral, but what does that mean? It means our electricity consumption emits 0 tonne of carbon, meaning every single KWH is offset to achieve carbon neutrality.

250,000 fewer trucks on the road

A Eurotunnel freight shuttle

An impressive 2 million tonnes CO2e are avoided each year because we actively reduce the number of our trucks out on the road using our subsidiary Europorte rail freight. That’s the equivalent of around 200 000 people’s annual CO2e emissions.

Book your next trip to Europe with Eurotunnel Le Shuttle

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