Josh Raglin

November 19, 2020

Josh Raglin, a resident of Atlanta, Georgia, serves as Chief Sustainability Officer for Norfolk Southern Railway (NS). In this role, he leads efforts to transform the company’s sustainability program, in part through increased attention to optimizing ecological assets including carbon, wetlands, and wildlife through conservation-based forest management practices, along with initiatives to improve the environmental impacts of all the company operations. Josh gained considerable recognition inside and outside the company as a conservation leader in his previous role as General Manager of Facilities at Norfolk Southern’s Brosnan Forest. Now Josh is tasked with taking his success at the Forest and scaling it up for the rest of the company, to become the industry leader in sustainability. Josh’s approach is to look for outcomes that combine economic development with environmental benefits. Some examples include leading efforts for a wetland mitigation bank and 6.5-mile stream restoration to restore valuable wildlife habitat at Brosnan Forest while supporting economic growth in the region. Beginning in 2010, Josh worked on a project with Green Trees, the leading carbon reforestation program in North America, to restore 10,000 acres of former woodlands in the Mississippi Delta. As the trees mature, NS expects to earn over 1.1 million carbon credits that can be used to offset company carbon emissions. Through Raglin’s efforts, NS already is selling carbon credits generated from our woodlands at Brosnan Forest.From these kinds of experiences over many years, Raglin has developed a broad network of internal and external contacts that can contribute to future partnerships.