Attendees Focused on Reducing Waste and Innovating Existing On-board Delivery Services to Minimize Amtrak’s Environmental footprint
PHILADELPHIA – On Thursday evening, Amtrak welcomed 20 DesignPhiladelphia industrial and product designers and students onboard trains at William H. Gray III 30th Street Station in an effort to source potential sustainable delivery solutions at its “Food Delivery Design with Amtrak- Get Carried Away” design charrette. DesignPhiladelphia is a 10-day festival produced by the Center for Architecture and Design that is held every October.
“Amtrak is always open to new ideas to help us improve our customers’ on-board experience, particularly while decreasing our impact on the environment,” said Lenka Hennessy, Amtrak’s Senior Director of Product Development & Customer Experience. “When we learned about the opportunity to participate in DesignPhiladelphia, we knew it would be a unique chance to tap into Philadelphia’s creative design community to help solve a food service delivery challenge in our evolving on-board customer experience: We must effectively deliver meals to our customers and exceed their expectations while reducing packaging, waste and dependence on single-use plastic.”
The winning entry for the best potential solution was created by Brandon Bauer. Bauer is a Cape May, New Jersey native and is currently a junior at Drexel University studying product design. He was awarded a round-trip Acela ticket for his winning submission. Runners-up included Robin Kohles, Sam Garst, Kristin Kopple and Arcangelo Guida in second place and BreAnna Bechtold in third. These finalists received special Amtrak branded merchandise for their contributions.
Amtrak has a recycling goal of 20% by 2020, and this project fosters a collaboration with vendors, facilities teams and on-board staff to improve onboard recycling and material diversion. Environmental sustainability is a corporate focus at Amtrak, with the company setting annual sustainability goals and now approaching a decade of implementing sustainability efforts across various company functions. For more information, visit Amtrak.com/sustainability.
*Pictured Left to right: Sam Garst, Tim Bullock (Amtrak On-Board Services), BreAnna Bechtold, Brandon Bauer, Kristin Kopple, Arcangelo Guida, Robin Kohles
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