Connecting through innovation
Innovate for good
Our purpose is to empower the world with the essential innovations to thrive, and we commit to using our innovation expertise to create solutions to important global challenges. At DuPont, we create value by embedding sustainability into our innovation strategy and building critical competencies such as lifecycle assessment (LCA), circular design and green chemistry. We are a global leader in technology-based materials and solutions that we use to support our customers and advance our 2030 innovation goals: Delivering solutions for global challenges, enabling a circular economy, and innovating safer by design. In 2021, we engaged with customers and other stakeholders around the world to align and accelerate our impact in the industries and markets we serve.
We will align 100% of our innovation portfolio to meaningfully advance the UN SDGs and create value for our customers by 2030. In 2021 we accelerated and increased our innovation value creation potential aligned to SDGs with deepened customer insights and specialized capabilities. Our approach was to engage strategic customers and end users around the world to better understand their needs and to strengthen our innovation platforms linked to solving sustainability challenges in the industries and markets we serve. A few of our 2021 award-winning innovations include our TapTec™ high-flux RO membrane for water treatment systems, a new building solutions Froth-Pak™ foam formulation that achieves a 99% reduction in global warming potential, and our BETAFORCE™ 2800 adhesive product for vehicle electrification.
Maximizing the circularity of a product throughout its lifecycle is complex, with different considerations by value chain and market. By 2030, we will integrate circular economy principles into our business models considering life cycle impacts in all markets we serve. In 2021, we identified three priority circularity challenges from our customer’s Circular Economy goals to align and accelerate our actions. We delivered a 52% increase over prior year of material diverted from landfill and upcycled into higher value applications and 71% of our sites have 4R (Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle) programs. Working with one of our medical product manufacturers, we designed a Tyvek® packaging solution that has a measurable, positive impact on our shared sustainability goals.
Our Product Stewardship commitment drives us to ensure that the products we bring to market are safe for use across their life cycle, compliant, risk-managed, trusted, and contribute to a more sustainable society. By 2030, we aim to design 100% of our products and processes using sustainability criteria and green chemistry. Our key accomplishments in 2021 include updated Product Stewardship and Regulatory chemical management policy for increased transparency, reduced risk, and increased actions to avoid substances of concern in new and existing products. We formalized Safer by design methodology including chemical screen tools through global employee engagement and targeted training. DuPont’s rigorous and comprehensive Product Stewardship and Regulatory (PS&R) Management System is at the core of our commitment to product safety and risk management and is a critical part of our new product innovation process.
Accelerated and increased innovation value creation potential aligned to SDGs with deepened customer insights and specialized capabilities
Diverted 52% more material from waste vs. prior year and 71% of our sites have 4R programs
Completed > 1,400 product stewardship reviews covering detailed health, safety, and environmental impact assessments for our products
Solutions to enable electric and smart vehicles, solving critical challenges
Solutions for global water challenges for purification, conservation and reuse
Advanced material solutions for drug delivery and sterile packaging
Device & infrastructure solutions for fast, reliable data transmission