Forward Progress (But More Work To Be Done) - DuPont's 2024 Sustainability Report

This week, we take a meticulous look at the progress DuPont has made over the past year in support of our 2030 Sustainability Goals with the publishing of our 2024 Sustainability Report . In addition to a compilation of highlights documented on our efforts to innovate for good, respect people and the planet, and empower people to thrive – we reported significant progress on our climate action targets well ahead of schedule.

Anyone in ESG Reporting can tell you how intricate the process of detailing a year’s worth of sustainability progress can be. It’s made significantly easier, though, when you’re surrounded by teammates who are genuinely motivated by contributing to the greater success of our customers, the planet, and our communities. The team here at DuPont works year-round to power sustainable innovation side-by-side with customers, resulting in meaningful impact on the lives and businesses of people around the world.

About our sustainability approach

We developed our sustainability strategy with our purpose in mind—to empower the world with the essential innovations to thrive. With the three pillars mentioned above (innovate for good, respect for people and the planet, and empower people to thrive), we are working toward nine specific goals designed to be challenging and provoke technical breakthroughs and new solutions for addressing our customers’ and society’s biggest challenges.?

Innovate for good

Innovate for good is our commitment to use our talent, resources, and innovation expertise to work on meaningful and valuable solutions to societal challenges. We address the world’s most pressing sustainability challenges by delivering innovative solutions in four key impact areas: climate action, enabling a more circular economy, creating products that are safe and sustainable by design, and advancing water stewardship. Our customer engagement initiatives help us understand our customers’ needs from each of our global businesses and shape our innovation priorities and investments to meet them.

A few highlights from our progress this year include:

• Our teams received seven R&D 100 and Edison Awards for innovative products have both performance impact and sustainability benefits for customers and society.
• DuPont was recognized as Best ESG Partner by Samsung Electronics and received eight additional Supplier of the Year awards from semiconductor customers for achievements in innovation and sustainability.
• We commercialized 25 products that were redesigned to avoid or eliminate the use of a Substance of Concern (SoC) and invested in over 30 R&D projects to phase out SoC in targeted products and applications.

Protect People and the Planet

Protect people and the planet is our commitment to ensure the safety of our employees, contractors, customers, and communities while improving our impact on the environment. Ultimately, the most valuable and enduring business outcomes are the ones that enable people and the planet to thrive. Our goals in this pillar focus on the challenges of climate change, water stewardship, and achieving world-class environmental, health, and safety performance.

A few highlights from our progress this year include:

• We achieved a 58% reduction of Scope 1 and 2 emissions from the 2019 baseline, surpassing our 2030 goal and outperforming expectations of the Paris Accord 1.5°C ambition.
• We achieved a 39% reduction of Scope 3 emissions from purchased goods and services and end of life of sold products from the 2020 baseline, surpassing our goal of 25% reduction.
• Five million people are expected to receive water and/or sanitation access over the next seven years through a collective impact investment in Water Equity Fund IV.
• We achieved zero unrecovered plastic releases of 0.5 kg or greater to the environment through our Operation Clean Sweep? Blue commitment, which aims to prevent plastic loss to the environment from our operations and logistics partners.
• We achieved our safest year on record for employees and contractors with over 80% of DuPont’s manufacturing sites reporting zero injuries.

?Empower People to Thrive

Empower people to thrive addresses how we enable our employees and communities to experience well-being, purpose, opportunity, equity, and connection. At DuPont, our employees are at the heart of our sustainability efforts and drive our results and impact. We cultivate an inclusive work environment that allows our employees to make a difference, grow professionally, and thrive. To further our impact, we encourage active participation in the communities where we work through key partnerships, collaboration with nonprofit organizations, skills-based volunteering, and board service.

A few highlights from our progress this year include:

• DuPont was recognized by Forbes as one of the best employers for diversity and a top company for women. Named a 2023 Best Place to Work for Disability Inclusion by Disability:IN.
• We funded over 880 community projects with more than 580 non-profit partners across 57 countries.
• We increased supplier diversity spend to 9% of total U.S. spend and named to The Forefront 25: Top Corporations for Minority Businesses.
• We achieved significant gains on overall Diversity, Equity & Inclusion score (+4 percentage points to 78%) on the company’s annual IMPACT employee survey with 82% of employees also reporting DuPont has an inclusive environment.

It’s amazing to me the extraordinary outcomes that can be created when sustainability is embedded throughout our innovation pipelines. Kudos and congratulations to our teams, customers, and partners who make it happen year after year.

We’ve made a significant amount of progress, but there’s no doubt that we’ve more to do to empower the world with essential innovations to thrive. So with that, let’s carry on – and continue using science and innovation to create meaningful impact around the world. Onward and upward!

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