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Water management

Enhancing global water stewardship  

Water is vital to life on our planet. Eastman knows that effective, science-driven, ethical solutions to the climate crisis must include water stewardship. The Eastman Water Policy governs all Eastman businesses and owned or operated sites as well as majority-owned joint ventures or joint ventures where Eastman exercises operational control. Eastman is a signatory to the UN Global Compact and supports the UN Sustainable Development Goals Clean Water and Sanitation (SDG 6) and Life Below Water (SDG 14). We commit to following every element of our water policy to ensure we use and manage this precious resource with the greatest of care.  all Eastman businesses and owned or operated sites as well as majority-owned joint ventures or joint ventures where Eastman exercises operational control. Eastman is a signatory to the UN Global Compact and supports the UN Sustainable Development Goals Clean Water and Sanitation (SDG 6) and Life Below Water (SDG 14). We commit to following every element of our water policy to ensure we use and manage this precious resource with the greatest of care. 

Informed by our water excellence team, our strategy ensures that we manage our global resources responsibly as it relates to water withdrawal, water discharges, water consumption and associated impacts from our manufacturing processes.

Here are some examples of our progress:

  • We annually use the World Resources Institute (WRI) Aqueduct™ tool and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Water Risk Filter to identify sites in water-stressed regions and future water risks for all manufacturing sites. 
  • Eastman is participating in two projects with the National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI).  The first project involves our manufacturing sites in Ghent, Belgium, and Springfield, Massachusetts. Those sites are participating in a project to achieve pipe parity — solutions and capabilities that use nontraditional water sources viable for end-use applications — by using energy efficient, cost-competitive technologies to treat and reuse water. In a second NAWI project, our Kingsport, Tennessee, site is participating in an effort to develop water treatment optimization software. 
  • Eastman performs company-wide water risk assessments. The three Eastman sites in Flanders in the northern region of Belgium are at high risk. The Blue Deal of Flanders aims to reduce the effect of drought in this water-stressed region. These sites are committed to the Blue Deal of Flanders and to reducing water consumption by reusing and recycling water. Eastman participates in a chemical industry work group that is preparing a quantitative water reduction proposal to the government. A new water treatment unit was installed at one site in 2020, resulting in a 30% increase in surface water intake efficiency and a 90% reduction in municipal water intake in 2021. Water bath optimization projects are currently being implemented at a second site. Additional water efficiency and water reuse projects are being studied, including the reuse of rainwater. In 2022, we expect a quantitative reduction in water consumption for the chemical industry to be agreed on. 

Good stewardship and natural resource management are embedded in our corporate strategy, and water — and our strategy for how we use, reuse and conserve water — is a key element of natural resource management. 

South Holston River in Tennessee

The South Holston River:
a prime example of good stewardship

Our largest manufacturing site in Kingsport, Tennessee, depends on drawing large quantities of water from the South Holston River that passes through it, but most of that water is used for noncontact cooling. 

In other words, that noncontact water flows once through pipes to cooling process streams and is returned to the river with no changes to its chemistry.    This benefits Eastman’s energy efficiency strategy while also ensuring we are good stewards in our community. 

 Third-party experts agree with our evidence that drawing water from the river is a more environmentally friendly solution than the alternative of cooling towers and refrigeration. Our decades of study of the Holston River — including a comprehensive study conducted by the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University — confirm that the South Holston is a healthy, thriving habitat for wildlife.