Align 100% of our innovation portfolio to meaningfully advance the UN SDGs and create value for our customers
Prioritize SDG challenge areas in early stage marketing and innovation processes
Integrate sustainability criteria into M&A and investment decisions
Enact partnerships for scalable impact to advance SDGs
DuPont’s 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. Now our innovation teams are working to determine how we will do it.
Ask any scientist why they got into science in the first place, and they’ll likely say because they were curious about the world around them and wanted to have a role in changing it for the better. For inspiration on how create that change, DuPont looks to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to see what global challenges we face that need to be solved now. Then we dig deeper to ask, “What is DuPont able to contribute to the effort?”
The vehicle of the future will be electric, autonomous and shared.
Our investments in the AHEAD™ automotive electrification program to transform the automobile industry, increasing energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions (SDGs 11 and 13).
Learn more about how the AHEAD™ initiative advances lightweighting, thermal safety and management, durability, comfort and connectivity in the automotive and transportation industries.
DuPont develops globally applicable technology solutions, but we recognize that our technologies, products and market applications need to be locally relevant—they need to match our customers’ unique and individual needs and the markets they serve. Innovating close to the customer yields the highest impact and fastest results, so we’ve strengthened our operating model by fully embedding our research & development teams into our businesses while retaining corporate capabilities that can be leveraged by the businesses.
In 2019, we had Innovation Centers in 11 strategic locations globally: Brazil, China, India, Russia, Switzerland, Japan, Taiwan, Turkey, United States: Silicon Valley, CA; Auburn Hills, MI; Wilmington, DE. And 14 major R&D Centers, in: Brazil, China, Denmark, Korea, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Japan, Taiwan, India, United States: Palo Alto, CA, Wilmington, DE, Marlborough, MA, Midland, MI.
Every day, DuPont scientists and engineers come together across disciplines, and roll up their sleeves to leverage each other’s work for new applications, a style of innovation that has given rise to world-changing innovations and tens of thousands of patents. Today, our teams collaborate on a global scale, whether they’re connecting across great distances via digital platforms or are meeting face-to-face in our research facilities or at our innovation-focused employee events.
While we have dozens of business-specific technology and R&D facilities globally, innovators from across DuPont converge in our 14 multi-business research centers, to collaborate on developing new solutions and finding new applications for existing technologies.
To catalyze progress on key industry and societal challenges, we’ve initiated several new innovation programs focused on specific areas. We’re focusing on areas of emerging science where we can leverage multiple DuPont technologies to enable rapid progress. In healthcare, for example, scientists and innovators from across DuPont’s businesses have been working together to identify and move forward on potential solutions to some of the healthcare industry’s biggest and most pressing challenges.
Through collaboration across DuPont’s businesses and beyond, we believe we can help the healthcare industry make biological pharmaceuticals that are safer and more affordable; develop drug delivery devices that will increase patients’ compliance and save healthcare costs; and introduce surgical and wearable devices that can prevent, diagnose and treat disease in ways that are not possible today.
Integrate circular economy principles into our business models considering lifecycle impacts in the markets we serve.
Design 100% of our products and processes using sustainability criteria including the principles of green chemistry.
Reduce greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions 30%, including sourcing 60% of electricity from renewable energy by 2030, and deliver carbon neutral operations by 2050.
Implement holistic water strategies across all facilities, prioritizing manufacturing plants and communities in high-risk watersheds; and enable millions of people access to clean water through leadership in advancing water technology and enacting strategic partnerships.
Become one of the world’s most inclusive companies, with diversity well ahead of industry benchmarks.
Create a workplace where employees report high levels of well-being and fulfillment.
Improve over 100 million lives through targeted social impact programs.
Read more about our sustainability strategy.
Engaging with industry peers, policymakers, and the partners along our value chain to advance sustainability.
Read our case studies for each goal