A Message From Our Chief Sustainability Officer
Frank O’Brien-Bernini, Chief Sustainability Officer
Owens Corning is pleased to provide our fifth annual sustainability report. With each edition, we have increased the comprehensiveness of the report in response to the evolving standards of sustainability reporting. While I invite you to spend some time exploring the details of our 2010 sustainability report, I’d like to draw your attention to a few highlights and share some learnings.
In 2010, Owens Corning was added to the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index. Inclusion in this elite listing means that the company now ranks among the top 10 percent of the biggest 2,500 companies worldwide based on long-term economic, environmental and social criteria. I am proud of our company for having earned placement on this index - providing an in-depth, third-party analysis to investors wishing to better understand our company.
Our sustainability strategy remains focused on three key areas:
- Greening our operations;
- Greening our products and
- Accelerating energy efficiency and renewables penetration in the built environment.
Our first-generation environmental footprint goals, from a 2002 baseline, were focused on the most critical resources (energy and water) and largest emissions (greenhouse gases, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and volatile organic compounds) and waste. Since then, we have significantly reduced our footprint and learned a lot along the way about the challenges of gathering global data, assuring its accuracy and driving improvements through employee engagement, innovation and targeted investments.
For example, we made significant progress in 2010 on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, achieving a 24 percent intensity reduction, or the amount for a specific quantity of output, compared to 2009. That’s a 19 percent reduction from our 2002 baseline. This improvement was a result of a major innovation in our foam operations, combined with an additional 6 percent energy intensity reduction.
Given our progress, our current environmental footprint and the evolving global views on what matters most, we are announcing a new set of 2020 footprint reduction goals in this report. I am very pleased with the high bar we’ve set, and believe these goals to be both aggressive and responsive to the global challenges we face. Our 2020 goals target significant reductions in energy, greenhouse gas, water, toxic air emissions, particulate matter and waste-to-landfill. Beginning with our next report, we will track progress against these goals, referenced to our 2010 baseline detailed in this report.
In addition to our footprint reduction goals, we have expanded our 2020 goals to drive and track the sustainability of our products and their applications, and to accelerate our supplier sustainability initiatives. We now have enough experience in these areas to set meaningful goals, working with our customers and suppliers to deliver sustainable solutions up and down the supply chain.
In this context, we are constantly seeking ways for Owens Corning’s unique capabilities to help create a more sustainable world. In 2010 we launched several product innovations in our composites and building materials businesses. Perhaps most notable is EcoTouch™ insulation with PureFiber® Technology. This total platform conversion, continuing through 2011, is a prime example of what we call “green without compromise” – that is, a solution that delivers industry-leading green attributes while improving upon the performance characteristics expected of its primary functionality. It continues to be a lot of fun to meet customers who have recently installed EcoTouch™ insulation and are equally excited about its green attributes and its excellent performance!
In 2010, we saw what appears to be a tipping point in the market pull for winning with green with composites. Working with our customers, we completed several comparative life cycle assessments to understand, improve and position composites as a greener alternative to traditional materials in many applications. I expect this trend to accelerate in the coming years. Our leadership position in greening our operations and greening our products creates a nice competitive advantage here for us.
Looking outside our manufacturing gates, we launched an interesting fuel-switching project with one of our logistics suppliers. The initial project, which converts transportation fuel from diesel to liquefied natural gas, will result in an estimated 23 percent greenhouse gas reduction on the converted trucking lanes. Projects like this have me eager to find more and more supplier sustainability partnership opportunities.
We have continued to make great progress, yet there is so much more to do. Every day I wake up thinking about “what’s next,” what more can we do to elevate our impact, increase our speed and bring more scale to make a bigger difference? I welcome your comments and suggestions; together, we can make much more progress!
If you’d like to track our activities more regularly, follow me at: http://twitter.com/FOB_GreenTweets
Frank O’Brien-Bernini
Vice President, Chief Sustainability Officer
