This year’s Sustainability Progress Report is, for DuPont, the 20th year it is reporting on its progress against its sustainability goals. “We remain focused on sustainable growth using a holistic approach that is fully integrated into our business models,” said Linda J. Fisher, vice president and chief sustainability officer.
DuPont has released its 2012 Sustainability Progress Report, marking the company’s 20th year reporting on its progress against its sustainability goals.
“We remain focused on sustainable growth using a holistic approach that is fully integrated into our business models,” said Linda J. Fisher, vice president and chief sustainability officer. “In the beginning, our focus included human safety and environmental protection. More recently, sustainability has become a market-driven business priority throughout our value chains.
“DuPont delivers advanced, innovative materials and processes that are critical to an evolving global economy,” Fisher said. “We are focused on addressing the key food, energy and protection challenges of a growing global population. We continue to look for opportunities to work with our customers and other key stakeholders to provide more sustainable solutions.”
Earlier this year DuPont committed USD 10 billion by 2020 to research and development on its nutrition and agriculture pipeline and plans to launch 4,000 new products by the end of 2020 to produce more food, enhance nutrition and improve farming sustainability worldwide. At the Rio+20 Conference, DuPont followed up with another announcement, listing its new energy efficiency goal as part of the UN Sustainable Energy for All initiative.
Last year, DuPont generated revenue of USD 1.9 billion from products that help customers or final consumers reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Much of the revenue growth was in photovoltaics and engineering polymers used in light weighting of vehicles. DuPont estimates that these products have reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in its supply chains by over 15.8 million metric tons from 2007 to 2011, equivalent to taking 3.1 million passenger cars off the road.
While the company’s GHG emissions were up slightly in 2011, overall they are 8% below an updated 2004 baseline year 1. DuPont continues to focus on identifying and implementing cost-effective greenhouse gas emission reduction opportunities at its facilities.
DuPont is currently ahead of its commitment to hold water use flat with its 2004 levels and reduce its emissions of air carcinogens. The company continues to report strong progress against its 2015 goal of certifying all sites under ISO 14001. It continues to transition its sales and marketing automobile fleet to leading technologies for energy efficiency.
Fisher added, “Setting and reporting on these goals helps us integrate sustainability into our business strategy, improve our environmental performance and provide positive sustainability benefits throughout our value chains. We are excited to see that the business of sustainability at DuPont has truly become business as usual.”
DuPont – one of the first companies to publicly establish environmental goals more than 20 years ago – has broadened its sustainability commitments beyond internal footprint reduction to include market-driven targets for both revenue and research and development investment. The goals are tied directly to business growth, specifically to the development of safer and environmentally improved new products for key global markets.