3M Announces ‘Embedded Sustainability’ Initiative

St. Paul, Minnesota-based 3M says it launches approximately 1,000 new products each year and, starting this year, 100 percent of them will have “sustainability” built in. The company says every new product will be required to have a Sustainability Value Commitment that demonstrates how it drives impact for the greater good.

The company says that this new, formal requirement is important because it embeds sustainability into the pipeline that produces 3M’s diverse global products. About one-third of the company’s annual sales come from products created in the past five years, so the impact will expand greatly with each successive year, it says.

“Sustainability has always been at the core of 3M-but we’re looking to do more,” says chief technology officer John Banovetz, who announced the new product requirement in December at the United National Climate Change Conference. “We are proud to formalize our commitment to this next step in innovating for a sustainable future.”

The new requirement is the first goal of 3M’s new sustainability focus announced in November 2018 by CEO Mike Roman.

“As a large and diverse global science company with customers spanning many industries and global markets, we have the opportunity to make an even greater impact in sustainability,” says vice president and chief sustainability officer Gayle Schueller. “We’ve made such significant progress on the 2025 sustainability goals we set in 2015 that we’re raising the bar. The new product goal is an example of the aggressive targets we’ll be setting in coming months as part our strategic focus on empowering science for ‘Circular, Climate and Community.’”

Examples of the sustainability value commitment in new 3M products include recyclability, energy and water savings, responsible sourcing, renewable materials, and/or reuse appropriate for the specific product.

The company says it will measure the progress and impact of the commitment and report on it annually.