We believe that working in partnership with others and committing to voluntary initiatives is important in demonstrating leadership. The following are examples of initiatives and partnership that DuPont is currently engaged in.
Field to Market, the Keystone Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture
Field to Market is a diverse alliance representing the many links in the food chain, including grower organizations, agribusinesses, food companies and conservation organizations. DuPont is a founding member of this alliance that set out to create a comprehensive sustainability index to measure the environmental, health and socio-economic outcomes of agriculture in the United States. This comprehensive methodology, introduced in January 2009 in the Environmental Resource Indicators report, could become the standard for measuring agriculture sustainability and generating consensus for the methodology across a wide number of stakeholders and geographies. Field to Market is also creating an online calculator to help individual growers assess the efficiency of their operation, along with cataloging advice from experts and other growers that will help advance future sustainability efforts. This initiative is organized and facilitated by The Keystone Center, a non-profit dedicated to developing collaborative solutions to societal issues.
United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP)
USCAP is a new alliance of major businesses and leading climate and environmental groups that have come together to call on the federal government to enact legislation requiring significant reductions of greenhouse gase emissions.
World Business Council for Sustainable Development Energy Efficiency in Buildings Project
Energy Efficiency in Buildings is a global project under the umbrella of WBCSD addressing the energy consumption by buildings. DuPont is a core member, along with 13 other global companies. The project focuses on the demand side of building's energy and on action within the building value chain. The EEB 2050 vision is a world in which buildings consume zero net energy.
Global Roundtable on Climate Change (GROCC)
The Global Roundtable on Climate Change brings together high-level, critical stakeholders from all regions of the world — including senior executives from the private sector and leaders of international governmental and non-governmental organizations — to discuss and explore areas of potential consensus regarding core scientific, technological, and economic issues critical to shaping sound public policies on climate change.
UN Global Compact
The Global Compact is a United Nations initiative to challenge the business community – individually through companies and collectively through business associations – to embrace, support and enact a set of core values in the areas of human rights, labor standards, environmental practices, and corruption. On April 30, 2001, in a letter to Kofi Annan, DuPont endorsed the Global Compact.
Chicago Climate Exchange
In 2003 DuPont became a charter member of the Chicago Climate Exchange, the world's first voluntary, legally binding, greenhouse gas emissions reduction and trading system. The purpose of the Exchange is to facilitate carbon trading in a way that encourages efficient greenhouse gas reduction efforts. In 2006, DuPont made a commitment to participate in Phase II of the CCX, for the years 2007 to 2010.
EPA Climate Leaders
Climate Leaders is an EPA industry-government partnership that works with companies to develop long-term comprehensive climate change strategies. Partners set a corporate-wide greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goal and inventory their emissions to measure progress. By reporting inventory data to EPA, Partners create a lasting record of their accomplishments. Partners also identify themselves as corporate environmental leaders and strategically position themselves as climate change policy continues to unfold.
EPA Power Partnership
EPA’s Green Power Partnership provides assistance and recognition to organizations that demonstrate environmental leadership by choosing green power.
EPA Energy Star
ENERGY STAR is a joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy helping us all save money and protect the environment through energy efficient products and practices. Because a strategic approach to energy management can produce twice the savings — for the bottom line and the environment — as typical approaches, EPA's ENERGY STAR partnership offers a proven energy management strategy that helps in measuring current energy performance, setting goals, tracking savings, and rewarding improvements.
WRI Green Power Market
DuPont was a founding member of the Green Power Market Development Group in 2001. The Green Power Market Development Group (GPMDG) is a collaboration of 12 leading corporations and the World Resources Institute dedicated to building corporate markets for green power. The GPMDG goal is to develop corporate markets for 1000 MW of new, cost competitive green power by 2010.
Pew Center on Global Climate Change
The Pew Center on Global Climate Change brings together business leaders, policy makers, scientists, and other experts to bring a new approach to a complex and often controversial issue. Our approach is based on sound science, straight talk, and a belief that we can work together to protect the climate while sustaining economic growth.
Environmental Defense and DuPont: Global Nanotechnology Standards of Care Partnership
DuPont and Environmental Defense have agreed to collaborate on a framework for the responsible development, production, use and disposal of nano-scale materials. Nanomaterials are 1 to 100 nanometers in at least one dimension and exhibit novel properties due to their small size. These materials hold great promise for new applications in materials, energy, medicine and other fields, but more needs to be known about their potential risks.
The intent of this framework is to define a systematic and disciplined process that can be used to identify, manage and reduce potential health, safety and environmental risks of nano-scale materials across all lifecycle stages. This framework will then be pilot-tested on specific nano-scale materials or applications of commercial interest to DuPont.
Business Roundtable S.E.E. Change Inititiave
Business Roundtable’s S.E.E. Change Initiative (Social. Environmental. Economic.) will promote better business and a better world by encouraging Roundtable members to adopt sustainability principles as a business planning tool and to showcase the results achieved. The initiative asks America’s leading companies to set challenging goals for environmental and social improvement and to meet these goals in a manner that creates business value.
Business Roundtable Climate Resolve
Business Roundtable’s Climate RESOLVE (Responsible Environmental Steps, Opportunities to Lead by Voluntary Efforts) initiative seeks to have every company in every sector of the economy undertake voluntary actions to control greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and improve the GHG intensity of the U.S. economy. Our goal is to have participation by 100% of the Roundtable membership.
Corporate Remediation: SURF Initiative
Several years ago DuPont initiated an effort to include sustainability in its cleanup decisions. DuPont communicated this possibility to other industries, academia, and regulators worldwide. The Sustainable Remediation Forum (SURF) was created in November 2006 by DuPont to bring together various remediation stakeholders to develop the ability to use sustainability concepts in decision making. SURF has since grown from a group of about 20 invitees to an open distribution list of 175 stakeholders throughout the U.S. Eight open meetings have been held and are playing an essential role in the movement to improve remediation decisions. SURF’s goal is to incorporate sustainability concepts throughout the remedial action process in a way that provides long-term protection of people and the environment while achieving public and regulatory acceptance. SURF defines sustainable remediation as a remedy or combination of remedies whose net impact on people and the environment is minimized through the judicious use of limited natural resources. A parallel organization, SURF UK, has been founded in by the UK environmental charity CL:AIRE and is now based in London.
