At Eastman, we continuously strive to protect the environment in the communities where we operate as well as through understanding the environmental impact of our products. As a manufacturer of chemicals since 1920 and a Responsible Care® company for more than 25 years, we have comprehensive guidelines and processes in place for reducing energy usage and minimizing our environmental footprint.
Eastman’s global environmental affairs team leads the charge for Eastman’s environmental focus. Through their work each day, Eastman maintains operations and provides expertise and insight across the value chain. Guided by Eastman’s environmental policy, the global environmental affairs team delivers compliance and insight to maintain sustainable operations and continually make improvements to Eastman’s products and processes. The expertise of this global team enables Eastman to be a responsible environmental steward while minimizing the company’s footprint and conserving natural resources in a cost-effective manner. This team works tirelessly to understand and comply with an increasingly complex web of applicable environmental laws, regulations and policies.
Not only does this deliver productivity gains for our business, but it contributes to our regulatory compliance and reduces our environmental footprint. We have set clear, measurable targets for energy intensity, greenhouse gas emissions and water conservation. We also focus our efforts to reduce waste, enable a sustainable supply chain and continually understand the impact of our products on the environment through life cycle assessments. This is an ongoing effort. As our company continues to grow, we have more opportunities for improvement.
We also work to understand and proactively manage emerging issues, which allows our businesses to focus on growth and innovation.
The men and women of Eastman take environmental stewardship to heart. We understand that maintaining safe, sustainable operations not only impacts our company but also our communities, the environment and our collective future. We also value the importance of collaboration to drive change internally with our businesses and functions as well as externally with academia, environmental agencies and organizations, customers, and our communities.
Collaboration
Operation Clean Sweep®
In alignment with our zero-incident mindset, Eastman has committed to strive for zero pellet, flake and powder loss. That aligns with our pledge to Operation Clean Sweep® (OCS), an international program designed to keep materials from production — such as copolyester pellets and acetate flake — completely in the production process, so there is no chance they will enter the environment. We have implemented the no-material-loss expectations of OCS across the company, and we have benchmarked with other OCS companies to understand best practices and learn from their program implementations and their decision to take the next step to OCS blue.
Fulfilling our goal, we have committed to the Operation Clean Sweep® blue program. We have also enhanced our internal reporting to better capture data associated with pellet, flake and powder containment loss. We are pleased to report that there have been no reportable plastic pellet losses to the environment outside company-operated facilities.
Eastman pledge certificate recognition as an OCS partner
Eastman OCS blue certification
