Real-world responsibility. Innovative answers. Sustainable solutions.DuPont Commitment to Environmental Stewardship
Environmental stewardship and real-world responsibility are part of the core company values that guide everything we do—starting with our own manufacturing and production.
DuPont in 1991 committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from our operations and to increase energy efficiency. During the 1990s we reduced greenhouse gas emissions (carbon equivalent) from operations by approximately 50 percent globally. This was primarily through major process-change investments to reduce nitrous oxide emission in the United States, Canada and the UK, (with the low-emission technology designed-in at a new plant in Singapore), and through reductions in byproducts of fluorocarbon manufacture. We also held energy consumption flat, despite a 36 percent increase in production volume (approximately half this gain was from process and powerhouse efficiency improvements – half from product and process mix changes).
DuPont has set business-driven internal goals for the current decade, anticipating both market pressures and opportunities as economies respond to the long-term climate challenge. These are aimed to position our businesses for the marketplace of 20 to 50 years from now – one which will demand less emissions and a markedly smaller "environmental footprint" from human activity. Specifically, by 2010, our goals are: 
- We will reduce our global carbon-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions by 65 percent using 1990 as a base year. For purposes of our "scorecard," we use the gases focused upon in the Kyoto Protocol.
- We will hold total energy use flat using 1990 as a base year. This will require that our business growth be much more "knowledge intensive" and much less raw material- and energy-intensive than in the past – a move that is very consistent with our stated corporate goal of "sustainable growth."
- We will source 10 percent of our global energy use in the year 2010 from renewable resources. We are serious about the need for renewable energy to be a part of our future. We are providing a strong "market signal" that there will be at least one major energy consumer ready to buy; and that we will work with suppliers of renewable energy resources to stimulate their availability at a cost competitive with best available fossil-derived alternatives.
These efforts support our vision of creating sustainable solutions essential to achieve a better, safer, healthier life for people everywhere.
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