This is Greenbrier’s second Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) report. The report provides information derived during Greenbrier’s fiscal years 2019 and 2020. References to 2019 refer to September 2018–August 2019. References to 2020 refer to September 2019–August 2020. See full Report.
The report is split into sections:
Freight railcars are designed to operate for up to 50 years and then be recycled at the end of their useful life. This makes railcars among the most reusable and recyclable types of capital equipment on the planet.
The most intense energy usage occurs at the beginning when steel is manufactured for its construction. This energy utilization results in a railcar with a low-emissions profile and longevity stretching multiple decades.
A railcar also results in the creation of many jobs during its lifecycle, including the manufacturing process. Our direct employment model ensures nearly all production employees work directly for Greenbrier, allowing for full workforce integration.
Customers include Class I railroads as well as preeminent operating lessors, shippers and financial institutions. Rail is among the most efficient modes of surface transportation. Rail shipments move one ton of cargo 472 miles on a single gallon of fuel. By comparison, trucks carry cargo only 145 miles per gallon.
Railcar repair and maintenance is critical in extending its useful life. Greenbrier Rail Services (GRS) offers signature after-market railcar services including replacement wheel sets, parts and general repair.
Finally, after 30–50 years of operation, railcars are scrapped. Steel materials are simple to recycle, melt down and repurpose into a new railcar or other steel-based products.
Greenbrier’s Board of Directors is focused on strong leadership and sound governance practices. Our Board is responsive to a continually evolving business landscape, including overseeing Greenbrier’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Greenbrier retains a high level of diversity with 30% female Board representation. In 2019, we were recognized as a “winning” company by 2020 Women on Boards (WOB). WOB is a nonprofit with the mission of empowering female business leaders and improving diversity and inclusion at the board level.
Our Board is keenly focused on diversity throughout Greenbrier as part of our companywide talent development initiative, including candidates for the Board, executive roles and other senior managers.
We multiply the effectiveness of our safety improvement program by involving everyone, from our CEO to each new hourly employee. We audit our workplaces every day, with our daily aim focused on zero unsafe behaviors and zero workplace risks.
We believe in having a robust diversity, equity and inclusion culture that prioritizes a welcoming, supportive and inspiring atmosphere where people of different races, ethnicities, genders and sexual orientations can flourish.
Greenbrier remains active in a variety of employer diversity organizations. An example of diversity at Greenbrier exists within our senior commercial team, who promote, market and sell our products. The team is 30% female and 20% racially or ethnically diverse.
Railcar manufacturing uses large quantities of steel. This makes natural resource utilization one of Greenbrier’s most substantial environmental impacts.
Greenbrier owns multiple facilities in Texas, including Greenbrier Corsicana, a Wheels shop, and Southwest Steel Casting Company, a steel fabricator for railcar components, formerly an ARI Company. These shops are neighbors. When Greenbrier completed the ARI asset acquisition in July 2019, both facilities came under the Greenbrier umbrella and the potential for collaboration expanded.
Southwest Steel has seen many benefits since this partnership began, the most significant is that they purchase old wheel sets from Corsicana to melt into brand new casting components. This effort not only provides Corsicana a consistent market for recycling its wheel sets, but Southwest Steel now uses 100% recycled railcar material to produce castings. Receiving truckloads of whole scrap wheels directly from Corsicana has dramatically lowered melting material costs, improved physical safety for its employees and reduced the environmental footprint at both facilities.
Steel casting quality has also benefitted. This results from the density of the wheels, which allows an entire scrap charge to go into the furnace, creating a continuous melt start to finish. This makes a cleaner, less oxidized steel, reducing the chance of internal defects. Southwest Steel’s electrical kilowatt-hour consumption has significantly diminished since the partnership began and has reduced its carbon usage during steel manufacturing to zero.
Energy usage is an important measure to track Greenbrier’s environmental impact. Specifically, tracking the embedded energy in our supplied steel and measuring the energy utilization at our manufacturing facilities is the best opportunity to reduce our impact on the environment.
Greenbrier works to reduce the amount of hazardous waste generated over time. We substitute less toxic material in our manufacturing process as it becomes available.
Greenbrier’s actual daily emissions are at extremely low concentrations and have minimal impact on the environment.
The majority of the air emissions at Greenbrier come from painting operations.
Climate change is one of the most significant environmental issues facing society.At Greenbrier, we track our Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG emissions at production facilities. Scope 1 (direct) emissions come from sources that the company owns or controls, such as business travel in a company car or the combustion of fuel in boilers and furnaces. Natural gas, diesel, gasoline, and propane are the main components of Greenbrier’s Scope 1 emissions. Scope 2 (indirect) emissions result from a company’s activities but from sources owned or controlled by another company.
Greenbrier uses approximately 20 million gallons per year per manufacturing facility. In contrast, a pulp and paper mill can regularly use 10 million gallons in a day.
As a responsible corporate citizen, we demonstrate our values through charitable giving. Greenbrier also employs a diversity, equity and inclusion lens to our charitable giving.
Our targeted focus areas include:
In 2019 we donated more than $605,000 in charitable contributions, and in 2020 we donated $503,000. Part of the decline in our year-over-year charitable giving totals was due to an expected downturn in the freight rail industry. Coupled with COVID-19, Greenbrier—among many other organizations—became cautious about expenses, but we remain focused on impactful philanthropy. As we move past the challenging business environment presented in 2020, we will increase our levels to pre-economic downturn levels.
As we move forward in our philanthropic efforts, we intend to:
Our global volunteer hours have consistently increased since we began tracking this metric in 2017. We expect to maintain this trend as the impacts of COVID-19 recede.
Going forward, Greenbrier maintains its focus on continuous improvement in our operations, our resource utilization and our awareness of the needs of the people who work for us and live in our communities.
| TOPIC | METRIC | CATEGORY | UNIT OF MEASURE | SASB CODE | RESPONSE/COMMENT |
| Accounting Metrics | Number of units produced by product category | Quantitative | Number | RT-IG-000.A | Greenbrier’s annual production mix can vary widely across product type and manufacturing volume. During FY21, Greenbrier will develop a standard methodology of this activity as it relates to energy use, GHG emissions and materials consumption. Sales data is provided in Greenbrier’s annual report to shareholders on Form 10-K. |
| Number of employees | Quantitative | Number | RT-IG-000.B | 10,589 | |
| Energy Management | Total energy consumed | Quantitative | Gigajoules (GJ), Percentage (%) | RT-IG-130a.1 | FY20: 1,644,720 Gigajoules (GJ) total energy usage. Electricity usage tracked in Megawatt Hours, converts to 668,650 GJ. Onsite fuel use is tracked and is 976,070 GJ. |
| Percentage grid electricity | 40.6% | ||||
| Percentage renewable | Not tracked separately | ||||
| Employee Health & Safety | Total recordable incident rate (TRIR) | Quantitative | Rate | RT-IG-320a.1 | FY19 IR was 1.75 FY20 IR is 1.59 FY19 DART Rate was 1.36 FY20 DART Rate is 1.29 |
| Fatality rate | 0.000 in FY 2020 0.0053 in FY 2019 (1 employee, FY19) |
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| Near miss frequency rate (NMFR) | FY20: 23.69 Greenbrier emphasizes the importance of reviewing all work-related environmental, health and safety incidents, including near misses. |
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| Fuel Economy & Emissions in Use-Phase | Sales-weighted fleet fuel efficiency for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles | Quantitative | Gallons per 1,000 miles | RT-IG-410a.1 | Not applicable to Greenbrier |
| Sales-weighted fuel efficiency for non-road equipment | Quantitative | Gallons per hour | RT-IG-410a.2 | Greenbrier does not make equipment with engines for transportation purposes and the fuel efficiency does not apply. Given the diversity of our products and applications in which our products are used, as well as the lack of industry standards to estimate on a per unit of work basis, Greenbrier does not calculate sales-weighted fuel efficiency or emissions in this manner. | |
| Sales-weighted fuel efficiency for stationary generators | Quantitative | Watts per gallon | RT-IG-410a.3 | ||
| Sales-weighted emissions of: (1) nitrogen oxides (NOx) and (2) particulate matter (PM) for: (a) marine diesel engines, (b) locomotive diesel engines, (c) on-road medium- and heavy-duty engines, and (d) other non-road diesel engines |
Quantitative | Grams per kilowatt-hour | RT-IG-410a.4 | ||
| Materials Sourcing | Description of the management of risks associated with the use of critical materials | Discussion and Analysis | N/A | RT-IG-440a.1 | Greenbrier responsibly sources the raw materials used to build our products. |
| Remanufacturing Design & Services | Revenue from remanufactured products and remanufacturing services | Quantitative | Reporting Currency | RT-IG-440b.1 | Our Wheels, Repair and Parts business generated 12% of Greenbrier’s FY20 annual revenue and relies heavily on remanufactured and scrap steel materials. |
