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Norfolk Southern Corp. has achieved its best-ever score — an 88 — in the S&P 500 Climate Change Report released by the Carbon Disclosure Project, the Class I announced yesterday. The results underscore the railroad's record of continuously improved performance in corporate environmental responsibility and carbon footprint reductions, NS officials said in a prepared statement.

The 88 score is 15 percent better than the 76 score in 2011 and the highest score in the five years NS has participated in the Carbon Disclosure Project survey, they said.

The Carbon Disclosure Project is an independent nonprofit organization that promotes greenhouse-gas emission reductions and sustainable water usage. The scores are a measure of climate mitigation performance and quality of disclosure. The Carbon Disclosure Project also provides a grade on a scale of A to E, and NS' B grade for 2012 matched its 2011 grade.

"The 2012 result exceeded our goal and puts Norfolk Southern in the high range of companies disclosing, well above the average disclosure score of 70," said Blair Wimbush, NS' vice president of real estate and corporate sustainability officer. "This positive trend complements our sustainability goal to achieve industry leadership in fuel conservation, emissions reduction, efficient energy use, recycling, use of renewable materials and environmental partnerships."

NS has attained 60 percent of a five-year goal to reduce emissions per revenue ton-mile 10 percent by 2014. With reforestation playing a key role in its carbon mitigation strategy, the company also has partnered with Green Trees to plant more than 6 million trees in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley.

NS also announced that its third-quarter earnings — which are projected to range between $1.18 and $1.25 per diluted share — likely will fall below third-quarter 2011's level because of volume declines in certain markets and lower fuel surcharge revenue.

Decreased coal and merchandise traffic, which will be partially offset by growing intermodal volumes, are forecasted to reduce third-quarter revenue by about $120 million, NS officials said. Fuel surcharge revenue is projected to drop about $80 million compared with the same 2011 period, they added.

Meanwhile, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal on Tuesday announced that General Biofuels Georgia L.L.C. will construct a $60 million wood pellet plant in Sandersville that will be served by NS and Sandersville Railroad.

The plant will manufacture industrial-grade wood pellets for a major European utility under a long-term contract. Production is scheduled to start in first-quarter 2014 at the facility, which is designed to manufacture about 440,000 tons of pellets annually.

Pellets produced at the plant will be loaded into rail cars and transported by NS and Sandersville Railroad to the Port of Savannah, where the freight will be stored and then transloaded into ocean-going ships for export. Sandersville Railroad interchanges with NS in Tennille, Ga.