Innovation

Grupo Estrella Roja in collaboration with the cement company CEMEX, has been transforming tires that are no longer used, making it able to reuse this material for the benefit of society and the environment, decreasing pollution.

The company constantly searches for ecological innovations, such as the system applied to the bus fleet as a whole, making a bus pollute the equivalent of one car (since a normal bus tends to pollute the equivalent of 50 cars), causing fewer gas emissions than what a normal bus emits per kilometers traveled. Customers choose Estrella Roja for their trips instead of choosing other vehicles on the road since the market is aware of climate change and is in search of ecological options.

Also, in 2018, Grupo Estrella Roja opened a bus station and filled it with stores and recreational activities for their employees, creating job opportunities and also offering the community a space to have a good time with their family, supporting gender equality, and providing jobs for seniors.

Inspiration

Within the company they see the "bus operation as an ecological operation". Before purchasing any bus or any type of vehicle for the company, they do many tests to ensure that they are buying the most ecological option and that has the least impact on the environment, "The decision to buy a bus takes around 3 to 6 months where we do performance tests and also pollutant emission tests."

We asked the interviewee what the ecological process was like inside the buses, since there is a general idea within society that buses pollute a lot, "The vehicles we have in this new generation of the Scania brand have a very clean process of burning fuel, in the end after all the combustion and a rejection of the same gases It goes through an entire filtration system which causes many parts of the pollutants to be trapped, and very few particles to come out of the exhaust emiting the same as an average gasoline-powered vehicle. For each kilometer that a bus generates "the same emission as if you took a trip by car and if you take into account that there are 39 passengers in each bus, it is as if you were removing 39 cars from the street."

We also asked him what had been the motivation to make this innovation within the company, "It has always been in the DNA of Estrella Roja to be a company that contributes to the environment and understand that our passengers feel the same. Estrella Roja is always focused on listening to the needs and requirements of the customers. From 2010 to date we have been very focused on looking for technologies that help the environment and we realize that our passengers have a lot interest in that and also to generate a awareness within the organization"

Overall impact

Between 2021 and 2022, in a ranking based on the SDGs Grupo Estrela Roja was rated by Citibanamex and the Technological University of Monterrey as one of the best Mexican companies for the efforts that this company has been applying to create less pollution in the environment.

These innovations have created a positive increase in customers and sales since the market is very aware of climate change and wants to make a difference by traveling on buses that are a more ecological option, keeping the company´s customers more satisfied.

Business benefit

Because of the business's improvements in the safety of buses and in the protection of the environment, they have detected an increase in clients interested in traveling by this means since they are traveling in a safe way that also does not contaminate the environment.

Social and environmental benefit

This business benefits both society and the environment. Helping the environment since they move more than a thousand people a day, and each of their buses can transport 50 passengers, while polluting the same as 1 car. One of the objectives of the company is to remove 50 cars from the streets and replace it with a bus polluting 50 times less than cars. A problem that transportation companies face in general is burning tires. This company uses a method to burn tires in an oven that does not hurt the environment and take advantage to reuse this material, while other companies may leave these tires that are no longer useful lying on the street or in the field, damaging the environment. They help society by providing jobs in all their branches and developments and also by building parks and providing benefits to their workers so that they can support their families in the bad economy that Mexico has.

Interview

José Ramón Celma García, Director of Operations