Key takeaways:
- Norfolk Southern is permitting freight prospects to purchase Environmental Attribute Certificates, which they’ll use to cut back Scope 3 emissions.
- Comparable schemes exist already in aviation and maritime delivery.
- The corporate has a aim of getting lower-carbon fuels account for 7 p.c of its gas combine by 2027 and 20 p.c by 2034.
A significant U.S. railroad is becoming a member of the aviation and maritime delivery industries in launching a book-and-claim scheme to assist prospects scale back freight emissions.
Norfolk Southern, which operates greater than 3,000 locomotives and strikes round 7 million shipments yearly, unveiled its RailGreen system final week.
Like different book-and-claims schemes, RailGreen is designed to permit any buyer to pay for and declare Scope 3 advantages. When biodiesel is utilized in a Norfolk Southern locomotive, the corporate generates an Environmental Attribute Certificates (EAC) for each ton of emissions averted. Prospects then buy EACs and rely them towards Scope 3 emissions. The certificates can’t be used twice or handed to a different firm.
The scheme was impressed partially by an equal maritime challenge generally known as Ship Inexperienced that was developed by maritime shipper Hapag-Lloyd, mentioned Josh Raglin, Norfolk Southern’s chief sustainability officer. The Sustainable Aviation Consumers Alliance operates an analogous scheme for air journey.
Displacing diesel
Norfolk Southern’s biodiesel shall be produced from vegetable oils, animal fat and used cooking oil, mentioned Raglin. The corporate’s locomotives should not have to be modified to work with the gas — offered that the lower-carbon different doesn’t make up greater than 20 p.c of the combo. Norfolk Southern is engaged on introducing one other different gas, generally known as renewable diesel, that may fully substitute fossil diesel. Raglin mentioned the corporate has a aim of getting these lower-carbon fuels account for 7 p.c of its gas combine by 2027 and 20 p.c by 2034.
Norfolk Southern is aiming to make use of 9 million gallons of biodiesel this 12 months, which, if licensed via the RailGreen system, would generate EACs comparable to 70,000 tons of CO2. Raglin declined to reveal the precise value of an EAC, however mentioned that it will be lower than $100.
The scheme builds upon Norfolk Southern’s emissions monitoring expertise, which checks gas burn in locomotives each quarter-hour. The info is used to report emission shares to particular person prospects, adjusted for the load of freight they’re transferring, distance travelled and different components.
Intermodal impacts
Gas switching initiatives are price pursuing as a result of no new expertise is required to implement the schemes, famous Scott Bernstein, founding father of the Heart for Neighborhood Know-how and an skilled on railroads and different elements of regional and concrete planning. The draw back, he added, is that they’ll distract from investing in additional consequential adjustments: “Generally gas switching finally ends up being an excuse for not making capital investments in a extra environment friendly form of system general.”
One instance that Bernstein advocates for is intermodal freight, by which transport networks are redesigned to shift the burden from highway to rail. The concept was the topic of a 2023 report by the Environmental Protection Fund, to which Bernstein contributed. As a result of emissions from rail are round 75 p.c decrease than the equal from trucking, shifting freight from one modality to a different can produce massive advantages, whatever the gas used.
“Going from truck to coach might be a a lot higher affect on decarbonization than staying with practice and simply altering the gas ingredient,” mentioned Invoice Loftis, a provide chain skilled, creator of the EDF report and proprietor of Provide Chain Ecology, a consultancy. “It’s sure to be as a result of rail is tremendously extra environment friendly than truck.”