Earth Day 2020

Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day

The past few months have given us all time to reflect on what is important-– our health, our families, service to one another, and to our communities and our world. Greenhouse gas emissions and pollution have fallen across continents as countries contain the spread of the coronavirus. Still, at the same time, resources and attention are unavoidably diverted from important causes like protecting our environment. 

And so today, despite the events around us, I write to remind you of the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day – one of the most significant civic-focused days of action in history. Events across the world this year will proceed virtually or privately within families, as you might imagine. But it’s still important to pause and take pride in our collective commitment to sustainability.

In 2010, as a company, we pledged to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 25% with a deadline of 2020. I am proud to announce that we have already reduced GHG emissions by more than 50%, and we are on track to exceed this target even further. This is a tremendous feat that we should all be proud of, however, operating sustainably is a continuous journey and our efforts continue. 

Recent sustainability initiatives include: 

• Being a founding signatory of the Business Roundtable’s Purpose of a Corporation.   
• Refining our sustainability strategy to a systems approach and reorganizing our Environmental and Corporate Social Responsibility teams all together within our Communications Team to focus on collective wellbeing, as opposed to just environmental impact.
• Developing a supplier sustainability program to understand better the impacts of our supply chain and how we can drive positive behaviors within our supplier base.
• Investing in sustainability software that enables us to monitor our environmental footprint, better track employee volunteerism and causes of interest, and facilitate the distribution of employee health and safety information. 
• Launching a mental health and wellbeing initiative, building on our anti-opioid work, to help improve prevention and diagnosis, and address stigma and access to mental healthcare. Our ability to serve our customers depends on our strong mental health and among other mental health challenges, by 2030, depression alone will be the leading cause of disability around the world.

Our talented colleagues and subject matter experts across the enterprise continue to lead sustainability initiatives each day. I want to thank them for their dedication. They collaborate with our business and community partners, suppliers, and other stakeholders who share our vision to improve our world and make it a better place for the coming generations.

Thank you for your commitment to a sustainable world.  

Roger A. Krone
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer