Air Products: Devoted to Our Sustainable FutureSustainability: at the heart of what we do We exist to solve customers’ toughest challenges. We dive in to understand the real need and then creatively apply the optimal gas or technology solution. Our customers experience higher productivity, better quality products, reduced energy use, and lower emissions. Put simply, our offerings and expertise help make them more sustainable.
We care deeply about protecting the environment. We set aggressive environmental performance goals and measure progress to continually improve our own operations.
We are proud to be embedded in hundreds of communities around the world, building partnerships, sustaining growth and contributing to shared goals.
As colleagues, we are driven to succeed by collaborating on work that is challenging and makes a difference. Products That Are Part of the SolutionFrom our leading position supplying hydrogen to refineries to make low-sulfur, cleaner burning fuels; to large-scale oxygen systems for solid fuel combustion and oil or clean coal gasification; to complete fueling infrastructure from supply to dispensing, we continue to invest in research and development (R&D) to develop products and processes that contribute to cleaner air and GHG mitigation. In 2017, over half of our total R&D budget of $58 million was spent on products and processes that reduce GHGs and address other sustainability issues. Our gases, equipment and applications expertise enable our customers in dozens of industries to improve sustainability performance by improving productivity, producing better quality products, reducing energy use and lowering emissions. Air Products estimates that the potential emissions avoided by industrial gas customers for these products and applications totaled $4 million metric tonnes of CO2e in 2017. Hydrogen is used in refining heavier, sour crudes, increasing yields and reducing emissions for cleaner transportation fuels. Many industries such as electronics, foods, glass, chemicals, and more benefit from its unique properties to improve quality, optimize performance and reduce costs. Environment, Health and SafetyAt Air Products, our commitment to safety, health and the environment is unwavering. Every day we are dedicated to improving our safety performance around the world. We are working to eliminate injuries, prevent adverse environmental and health impacts and reduce waste and emissions at our facilities. Environment, Health and Safety PolicyWe will be an industry leader in environmental, health, and safety performance and are committed to the following basic principles in managing our businesses worldwide: - Compliance with all applicable environmental, health, and safety laws and regulations.
- Continual improvement in health, safety, and security performance with the goal of zero injuries.
- Continual reduction of the environmental impact of our operations.
- Design and operation of our plants and facilities in a manner that protects the environment and the health, safety, and security of our employees, contractors, and the public.
- Development and production of products that can be manufactured, distributed, used, and recycled or disposed of in a safe, secure, and sustainable manner.
- Existing and new EH&S risks are understood and managed through our Risk Management Processes.
- Transparent discussion of our environmental, health, and safety practices and performance.
EnvironmentWe share society’s concerns about the impacts of climate change on our environment. As a result, we are focused on developing real solutions, bringing the breadth of our innovation, problem solving abilities, and proven gases and technology capabilities to bear on climate change. Our Greenhouse Gas strategy is focused on leveraging the business growth opportunities of climate change while managing its potential risks. In this capacity, we are identifying opportunities to use our core technology and product strengths to bring cost-effective solutions to our customers, and helping to reduce their environmental impact while improving our facilities to reduce emissions and costs. We demonstrate this commitment through continually working to improve our own productivity and reduce our impact on the environment, and we have established four environmental sustainability goals for 2020, each of which uses operating performance from 2015 as a baseline year: - Save energy by reducing use intensity by 2.5% for ASUs, and 1.5% for HyCOs
- Reduce GHG emissions intensity by 2%
- Conserve water and lower use intensity by 5%
- Improve efficiency and reduce CO2 emissions related to distribution by 10%
Established in 2016, these goals were selected based on environmental parameters considered the most significant for Air Products. Safety and HealthAt Air Products, safety is our top priority. It is a moral obligation, a condition of employment, and is fundamental to our goal of being the safest and most profitable industrial gas company.
Safety is part of our culture. We all care about safety and are driving towards our goal of zero accidents. Year-on-year, we strive to incrementally improve safety at all our sites to benefit our colleagues and the communities in which we operate. Our new 2020 goal to lead the industrial gas industry in safety as measured by recordable and lost-time incident (LTI) rates will help us continue to drive our performance.
Our beliefs about safety have been instituted since 1975 through our Total Safety Philosophy, which stresses that nothing is more important than safety, and that safety is a condition of employment. Supporting this philosophy is Air Products’ global EH&S Policy, which reinforces our commitment to being an industry leader in safety performance, continual improvement in safety with the goal of zero injuries or incidents, maintaining safe plants and products, managing safety risks, and publicly sharing our safety practices and results. Every employee is required to understand and adhere to our global EH&S policy. Year-on-year, we strive to improve safety at all our sites to benefit our colleagues, customers, and the communities where we operate. Our 2020 goal to lead the industrial gas industry in safety helps drive our performance. And in 2017 our safety performance was the best in company history. Product StewardshipEnsuring our customers and other people handling our products are provided with the safety information they need is a key part of product safety. To collect this information, we have conducted product safety reviews of all our commercial products by characterizing EH&S hazards, examining uses, and taking actions to address concerns. Safety information from these reviews has been used in safety data sheets (SDS), which are a primary vehicle for communicating hazards information. We also share products hazards through labels that are compliant with the Globally Harmonized System (GHS), Safetygrams, and customer training. Product safety reviews and our phased process for new technology development support the intent of the Precautionary Principle. These processes use formal programs to identify and address potential risks. In addition, we have conducted Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) to quantify the environmental "footprint" of select products and technologies for comparison to new and competitive offerings. |