Developing our 2030 strategy
In 2018, we conducted a materiality assessment to determine the strategic sustainability priorities for the specialty products businesses.
We interviewed customers, investors, suppliers, NGOs, and internal stakeholders representing each of our businesses to understand which global megatrends they thought aligned to the DuPont portfolio of diverse solutions. We also asked them questions about how we could positively contribute to industry challenges and create new opportunities for success. After evaluating their feedback to identify themes and commonalities, we cross-referenced that list with the key issues identified in materiality reviews conducted by our heritage companies, as well as topics covered in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the GRI framework, and SASB standards.
To validate these results, we held internal workshops with technology, marketing, product stewardship, and sustainability leaders from each DuPont business, where we captured a rich and diverse set of viewpoints. We then evaluated the likelihood and magnitude of both long- and short-term risks and opportunities in our operations and value chains. We validated our results with an external sustainability consulting firm, who offered us further guidance on how to turn this information into a well-articulated strategy to help us meet both business objectives and sustainability aspirations.
Analyzing stakeholders’ feedback led us to six priority areas: Sustainable Innovation; Circular Economy; Climate Change; Health, Safety and Well-being; Product Safety and Transparency; and Water Stewardship. Several of these priority areas must be addressed through multiple lenses—innovation, operational excellence, and new collaborations with our business partners.
This three-pronged framework supports our company growth strategy, provides common ground for our diverse businesses, and led to the establishment of nine ambitious sustainability goals that address our most critical sustainability areas.
DuPont and the SDGs
We are using the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a guiding set of principles to understand what the world needs action on, now. Active portfolio management is a part of the company's growth strategy, and 2020 proved that this culture of flexible and adaptive innovation only enhances our resiliency as a company. We re-imagined the post-COVID world to envision which megatrends and disruptive forces could emerge, subside, and shift as the world shifts to a new normal.
Even as our product portfolio evolves, the SDGs and our sustainability goals will continue to be used as orienting frameworks, and signals of global sustainability challenges for our scientists and engineers to work toward solving. In 2020, our business and sustainability strategies allow us to have an outsized impact on these eight SDGs.
Our Goals
Our new 2030 Sustainability Goals are also helping to shape our innovation agenda and processes. We designed the goals to be challenging – to provoke technological breakthroughs and new ideas for addressing society’s biggest challenges.
Go here to learn about the rationales and beliefs that underpin our sustainability goals:
INNOVATE
PROTECT
EMPOWER
Sustainability Governance
Implementation of our sustainability goals is overseen by our Strategic Sustainability Leadership Council, which is chaired by the Vice President of Corporate Sustainability. Each goal has a dedicated executive sponsor, responsible for collaborating across the company to drive actions that enable sustainability and business success in their respective areas of expertise. Each DuPont business also has a dedicated sustainability leader responsible for overseeing business and product-level sustainability efforts.
Ultimate responsibility for sustainability performance sits with the Chief Technology and Sustainability Officer (CTSO). The CTSO role is specifically focused on capitalizing on the intrinsic link between sustainability and innovation in our operating model. The CTSO also chairs the Sustainability Oversight Committee, a subset of DuPont’s Senior Leadership Team. This executive steering committee includes members who were strategically appointed based on their respective areas of leadership—corporate governance and finance, operational excellence, employee experience and development, innovation, and business oversight.
The Board of Directors is responsible for overseeing the Company’s strategic direction, including the integration of environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks and opportunities into the Company’s strategy.