Norfolk Southern introduces 'RailGreen' to reduce customers' supply-chain emissions

Norfolk Southern Railway today launched RailGreen, a solution for customers to reduce emissions from their freight-rail shipments. Under RailGreen, NS' biofuel use is third-party certified, generating RailGreen certificates.

Customers can purchase the certificates to apply toward their supply chain emissions. As customers purchase certificates, NS acquires more low-carbon biofuel for use across its operations.

The RailGreen process uses 123Carbon's blockchain-backed environmental attribute certificates (EACs) to certify that each ton of reduced carbon dioxide equivalent is uniquely tracked to prevent double counting, according to an NS press release.

RailGreen makes NS the only freight railroad to offer verified certificates for supply-chain emissions reduction, NS officials said.

End-to-end transparency ensures certificates verify the chain of custody across fuel providers, rail carriers, freight forwarders and cargo owners, according to NS. Third-party validation by independent assurance partners verifies carbon-reducing activities against international standards.