NS highlights sustainability achievements in seventh annual report

Norfolk Southern Corp. has released its latest "Connections" sustainability report, which details ongoing efforts to improve environmental performance.

The seventh annual report discloses the railroad's environmental, economic and social impacts, and highlights performance in such areas as locomotive fuel efficiency and emissions, energy usage, land conservation, waste management and water conservation.

Environmental achievements from 2013 show NS:
• reached nearly 79 percent of a five-year goal launched in 2010 to reduce greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions by 10 percent per revenue ton-mile;
• saved an estimated 10 million gallons of locomotive diesel fuel and avoided around 110,500 metric tons of GHG emissions by employing LEADER train-handling technology;
• completed 65 percent of a five-year, $5.6 million partnership begun in 2011 with GreenTrees® to reforest 10,000 acres in the Mississippi Delta; and
• collaborated with The Nature Conservancy in support of the largest-ever longleaf pine reforestation effort in Virginia.

"From our earliest beginnings, our commitment always has been to deliver customers' freight safely, efficiently and economically, and in doing so to provide fair returns to our shareholders and a desirable workplace for employees," said NS Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Wick Moorman in a press release. "Today we understand that everything we do must respect the planet [and] that environmental sustainability is smart business."

The report also states that NS last year helped locate 67 new industries and expand 25 existing businesses, representing more than 136,000 carloads of new business; opened regional intermodal facilities in Charlotte, N.C., and Greencastle, Pa.; reduced serious workplace injuries by more than 5 percent; and hired more than 1,000 employees.