Jaguar Cars has been named National Champion in the Green Apple Awards 2003. This is the sixth year in a row that Jaguar has won a Green Apple Award in the national campaign to find Britain's 'greenest' companies.

Jaguar Cars won this year's award in recognition of improvements to its rail infrastructure, having added a new railhead at its Castle Bromwich plant in Birmingham. This has enabled Jaguar to vastly reduce the number of car deliveries made by truck, significantly benefiting the environment. The new railhead was opened by Princess Anne in March this year.

Kevin Wall, Jaguar's Director of Material Planning and Logistics, collected the award at a reception at the House of Commons, hosted by The Rt. Hon. Patricia Hewitt MP, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. The £10 million railhead project comprises two new rail sidings and an 18 acre terminal facility capable of holding 1,600 finished vehicles for marshalling/despatch to one of Jaguar's 63 overseas markets. Up to 50,000 vehicles built at Jaguar's Castle Bromwich and Browns Lane sites will leave the terminal each year.

Jaguar expects the facility to take some 45 million truck miles off the UK road network over the next 10 years and, together with Jaguar's Halewood plant on Merseyside, which has a similar rail terminal, over 70 million truck miles are projected to transfer from the roads to the rail network over the 10 year period.

The Green Apple Awards are organised by The Green Organisation, an independent, non-profit environment group dedicated to recognising and promoting environmental best practice.