ANALYSIS OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY REPORTING OF CLASS I RAILROAD COMPANIES OPERATING IN THE US

There were three objectives in this study. First, to identify which indicators Class I Rail companies reported in their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports to become sustainable. Second, to identify which indicators Class I Rail companies implemented to reduce emissions and increase capacity. Third, to identify if company size or government legislation/support affected the environmental reporting of Class I Rail companies.

For the first objective, reports filed by companies to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) were analyzed. It was found that companies reported mostly on social indicators related to employee wellbeing, followed by environmental indicators related to finding ways to reduce emissions caused during transportation. For the second objective, a framework was developed by the researcher, the Freight Rail Framework, which included indicators to measure capacity increase and emissions reduction efforts. Reports from the GRI and the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) filed by companies were analyzed. Results showed that companies relied mostly on locomotive technological improvements to reduce their emissions. However, although not mentioned directly in the reports, many of the indicators related to capacity increase were also implemented. Finally, from factors that could have been affecting the reporting and therefore initiatives companies were implementing to reduce their environmental impacts, it was government legislation/support which was found to have an effect in the reporting and practices implemented by Class I Railroad companies.