Trinseo continues to strive toward our ambitious 2030 Sustainability Goals that were established in 2020. These goals are transforming how we do business and aim to increase the sustainability of our products and operations, minimize our impact on climate change, drive supplier responsibility, establish a more sustainable workforce and build a strong sustainability reputation.
As part of Trinseo’s commitment to achieving these goals, I was appointed as the first Chief Sustainability Officer in September to develop and execute the strategy and accelerate the progression of these goals. Our success in this endeavor is dependent on a strategic roadmap that is based on actionable milestones, not theoretical approach. Considering my engineer background and experience as a business leader, I understand how critical it is to understand the needs of the customers and develop a clear plan to meet their requests and deliver value-added sustainable innovative solutions.
To facilitate a successful strategy, I established the Sustainability Business and Services team to align our mission within four sustainability pillars. This team brings together expertise from across the industry in R&D, technology, industry affairs, business management, customer centricity and material sourcing to provide key insights to develop a solid and successful roadmap.These experts help inform and prioritize our sustainability pillars that will drive our transformation and provide the milestones by which we can measure success on our sustainability journey.
First Pillar: People
At Trinseo, our workforce is one of our top sustainability priorities because they are the best resources we have. Our employees have helped us build our reputation for providing tailored, innovative customer solutions. Through this pillar, we will partner with Human Resources to ensure we have a welcoming, inclusive environment that values and accelerates diversity and advances our thriving company culture.
Second Pillar: Products
The 2030 Goals are based on meeting our customer needs with sustainable solutions, which includes developing circular solutions with ‘end of life’ in mind, and providing recyclable, renewable and bio-based materials while developing and licensing technology.
Our products provide us with an opportunity to collaborate with our business partners and customers to understand their needs in order to be a solutions-driven and responsible supplier. Trinseo’s most recent acquisition, Heathland B.V., is an important step in achieving our goal. As a leading collector and recycler of post-consumer and post-industrial plastic wastes in Europe, Heathland is an investment that strengthens our circular solutions capabilities.
In the years ahead, we will continue to explore funding investments into new, innovative technologies and materials that help us be more sustainable, as well as partnering with organizations and companies to reinforce our reputation within the marketplace.
Third Pillar: Planet
Simply put, Trinseo’s goal is to reduce its carbon footprint around the world. By minimizing our impact on our planet, we are improving the lives and wellbeing of our customers and employees. For this reason, we are working on a clear, detailed roadmap to decarbonize our operations.
Through our value chain partnerships, we will extend our supplier responsibility for producing sustainable products to encourage our partners to reduce their carbon footprints as well.
Fourth Pillar: Profit
Like all businesses, we need to deliver value to our customers and stakeholders. By building on our sustainability efforts, we will make our products an intrinsic part of our customers’ sustainability goals and deliver on our fourth pillar to maximize profits with our value-added solutions.
Companies are rated by their Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance, which measures the ethical and sustainability factors for a business. These rates can impact company funding, as well as the calculated value of stock. By maintaining our profitability and ESG performance, we reaffirm our sustainability goals and show the marketplace there is demand for these products. That’s why our multiprong focus on products, people, and our planet are so important in developing a more profitable, sustainable business model.
Sustainability initiatives are no longer optional for companies. By leveraging our resources and place in the marketplace, Trinseo will contribute to improving our industry through sustainable solutions that are equivalent or better than the services previously offered. Our 2030 Goals will help us transform Trinseo into its best business, as we continue to strategically and ethically source and develop innovative materials that meet the needs of our customers.