Eastman named one of America’s most just companies by JUST capital, CNBC

KINGSPORT, Tennessee

JUST Capital, along with its media partner CNBC, today released the annual JUST 100, recognizing Eastman for its commitment to address key environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues Americans care about most through its ongoing engagement with employees, customers, communities, the environment, and shareholders. The JUST 100 is the only ranking that honors companies doing right by all their stakeholders as defined by the American public.

Through vigorous, objective analysis, JUST Capital, in partnership with CNBC, evaluates and celebrates U.S. corporations that outperform on the issues that matter most to the American public – such as creating jobs in the U.S., paying a fair, living wage, prioritizing accountability to all stakeholders, protecting worker health and safety, providing benefits and work-life balance, cultivating a diverse and inclusive workplace, producing sustainable products, and protecting customer privacy.

Eastman’s ESG priorities align with the company’s strategy to position itself as a leading material innovation company, prioritizing its top innovation platforms to address the triple challenge of climate, circularity, and caring for people and society. In 2020, Eastman announced aggressive 2030 sustainability goals, which include but aren’t limited to:

• reducing absolute Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by one-third by 2030 to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, 
• recycling ~250 million pounds of plastic waste annually by 2025 and ~500 million by 2030 through the company’s molecular recycling technologies, 
• achieving gender parity in alignment with the company’s commitment to Paradigm for Parity® and being an industry leader for racial equity.

“We are deeply honored to be recognized as one of America’s Most JUST Companies and to be named alongside so many notable and reputable companies,” said Board Chair and CEO Mark Costa. “It’s very gratifying to know that the issues that matter most to Americans are the same as those that matter most to us at Eastman. Throughout the company, we recognize the responsibility we have to all of our stakeholders – employees, customers, communities, investors – and we take that responsibility very seriously. This recognition reflects our culture, our values, and our talented team of people who strive to fulfill our purpose of enhancing the quality of life in a material way.”

For the annual rankings, JUST collects and analyzes corporate data to evaluate the 1,000 largest public U.S. companies across 20 stakeholder-focused issues as identified through the most comprehensive ongoing public opinion research on Americans’ attitudes toward responsible corporate behavior, engaging more than 150,000 participants since 2015.

“We’ve entered a new era of accountability where employees, customers, and investors want to understand if companies are not just talking the talk but walking the walk to drive change on the critical issues of our time,” said Martin Whittaker, CEO of JUST Capital. “The companies featured in the 2022 JUST 100 are demonstrating that purpose and profits can go hand in hand by delivering value to all stakeholders, including shareholders.”

“I am proud of the work our teams are doing to develop new product innovations that advance solutions for society’s most pressing needs; increasing transparency; attracting, developing, and retaining a diverse workforce; and promoting a welcoming, inclusive culture for all team members. Add to those the commitment by our Board of Directors and executive leadership to continue our track record of strong corporate governance, and I am confident we are positioning Eastman to thrive for years to come,” added Costa.

A comprehensive interactive ranking and benchmarking platform is available at www.justcapital.com.

About Eastman 

Founded in 1920, Eastman is a global specialty materials company that produces a broad range of products found in items people use every day. With the purpose of enhancing the quality of life in a material way, Eastman works with customers to deliver innovative products and solutions while maintaining a commitment to safety and sustainability. The company's innovation-driven growth model takes advantage of world-class technology platforms, deep customer engagement, and differentiated application development to grow its leading positions in attractive end markets such as transportation, building and construction, and consumables. As a globally inclusive and diverse company, Eastman employs approximately 14,500 people around the world and serves customers in more than 100 countries. The company had 2020 revenues of approximately $8.5 billion and is headquartered in Kingsport, Tennessee, USA.

About CNBC

CNBC is the recognized world leader in business news, providing real-time financial market coverage, business content and general news consumed by more than 547 million people per month across all platforms. The network’s 15 live hours a day of news programming in North America (weekdays from 5:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m. ET) is produced at CNBC’s global headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., and includes reports from CNBC News bureaus worldwide. CNBC at night features a mix of new reality programming, CNBC’s highly successful series produced exclusively for CNBC and a number of distinctive in-house documentaries.

About JUST Capital

The mission of JUST Capital, an independent nonprofit, is to build an economy that works for all Americans by helping companies improve how they serve all their stakeholders – workers, customers, communities, the environment, and shareholders. We believe that business and markets can and must be a greater force for good, and that by shifting the resources of the $19 trillion private sector, we can address systemic issues at scale, including income inequality and lack of opportunity. Guided by the priorities of the public, our research, rankings, indexes, and data-driven tools help measure and improve corporate performance in the stakeholder economy. To learn more about how data-driven insights are creating a more just future for capitalism, visit: www.JUSTCapital.com.

About the Methodology

Since 2015, JUST Capital has surveyed more than 150,000 Americans on what Issues they believe U.S. companies should prioritize most when it comes to just business behavior. Those Issues become the foundation by which we track, analyze, and incentivize corporate behavior change, including the Rankings of America’s Most JUST Companies. JUST evaluated 954 companies across 5 stakeholders, 20 Issues, and 241 raw data points to produce the 2022 Rankings, including the JUST 100 and Industry Leader lists. This selection of companies draws from the Russell 1000 Index, which represents over 90% of the U.S. stock market value. The 2021 Annual Issues Survey was conducted in association with SSRS – an objective, non-partisan research institution that provides scientifically rigorous statistical surveys – among a general population sample of 3,000 U.S. adults.