Building Products & Scope 3: Real Freight, Real Growth and Why Transportation Matters

Building products are a good example of why Scope 3 can become a very practical freight conversation. Lumber, siding, panels and engineered wood are physical products with real weight. They move from producing regions to manufacturers, distributors and customers, often through the same lanes over and over.

That makes transportation worth looking at — not just from an emissions standpoint, but as part of the larger questions around cost, capacity, reliability and supply-chain planning.

And for our railroads, this is not a theoretical industry. Building products are already moving through businesses we serve in Western New York and the Southern Tier.

Building products are already real freight on our railroads

The building-products supply chain takes a lot of forms. Some businesses manufacture products. Others receive lumber and engineered wood for distribution to contractors, builders and regional customers.

On the Livonia, Avon & Lakeville Railroad, two established Henrietta-area businesses provide good examples of what that freight looks like.

We are not suggesting that either company's use of rail is tied to Scope 3 or a particular sustainability program.

The point is simpler: this is what the building-products supply chain actually looks like. Material has to get from producing regions into local manufacturing, distribution and construction markets.

Weight, distance and the number of times those movements repeat during the year can make transportation a meaningful part of that supply chain.

LP Building Solutions in Bath shows the bigger picture

A few counties south of Rochester, the connection between freight rail, manufacturing and industrial growth becomes even clearer.

LP Building Solutions broke ground on its first New York manufacturing facility in Bath in 2022. The company opened its 90,000-square-foot LP SmartSide ExpertFinish prefinishing facility in 2023 on a 75-acre site in the Steuben County Industrial Development Agency's business park.

The freight connection was built into the project from the beginning. LP says exterior siding arrives at Bath by rail from its siding production mills. The material is then painted, packaged and distributed throughout the Northeast and beyond.

The facility is served by the B&H Railroad , part of the LA&L railroad family.

The expansion brings the original plan full circle

There is an interesting connection between the original Bath project and the expansion underway today.

In its original project application, LP explained that it had initially considered an approximately 150,000-square-foot facility. Roughly half would have been used for prefinishing operations and the other half for indoor raw-material storage.

Escalating construction costs and additional site work changed that plan. LP reduced the amount of Phase I space under roof and moved the incoming raw-material storage outside.

But the company also said something important at the time: it expected subsequent phases of expansion at the Bath site.

That is now happening.

The current Phase II project adds indoor storage and more production capability as LP continues to grow the Bath operation. LP has also told investors that it expects to add additional ExpertFinish capacity at Bath during 2026.

It is a good example of what rail-supported industrial development can look like over time: establish the site, connect it to the freight network, begin production, grow the business and continue investing.

Transportation is also part of LP's Scope 3 reporting

The sustainability connection does not require us to guess what matters to LP. The company publishes its own Scope 3 emissions data.

So what should another building-products company look at?

Not every lumber, siding or engineered-wood shipment belongs on rail.

But if a company is moving a heavy product over a meaningful distance throughout the year, the lane is worth understanding.

Those answers give you something real to evaluate.

From there, a company can look at rail access, equipment, handling, transportation cost, inventory, service requirements and any truck movement needed at either end.

If Scope 3 is part of the company's sustainability work, transportation emissions can be included in the same lane-level comparison.

Rail and truck can solve different parts of the same move

A customer does not necessarily need its own siding to evaluate rail.

Some building-products businesses receive railcars directly. Others can use a transload facility where the long-distance portion moves by rail and trucks complete the shorter local delivery.

Real freight makes the Scope 3 question easier to understand

Scope 3 can sound abstract when the discussion starts with greenhouse-gas categories and accounting terminology.

It gets more practical when you look at the freight.

Lumber and engineered wood move into established building-products businesses in Henrietta. Siding moves by rail from LP production mills into a manufacturing operation in Bath. That Bath operation opened, created jobs, helped drive investment in railroad infrastructure and is now expanding again.

Those are physical supply chains supporting real businesses and real investment.

For companies measuring Scope 3, transportation adds another question to the same freight decisions they already make around cost, service, capacity and reliability.