The Société de Chimie Industrielle will award the 2022 International Palladium Medal to Eastman Board Chair and Chief Executive Officer Mark J. Costa for his contributions to the chemical industry and his leadership in enhancing the international aims and objectives of the Société de Chimie Industrielle. He will receive the award at a dinner in his honor on September 12, 2022, at the New York Hilton Midtown. Peter Young and James M. Weatherall, Co-Chairmen of the Société de Chimie Industrielle Award Dinner, commented, "Mark has dedicated his career at Eastman to harnessing the power of innovation and science to solve the world's biggest challenges, most notably in the circular economy. He has applied his exceptional leadership skills to guiding his company through a period of incredible growth while consistently forging constructive relationships with multiple stakeholders and being fully dedicated to the success of the chemical industry and the people around him. This rare combination of leadership qualities is well matched with the objectives of Société de Chimie Industrielle."
Each year, nova-Institute invites producers and inventors of innovative technologies and applications based on biomass, CO2, or advanced recycling to submit their innovation for the Renewable Material of the Year award. The purpose of this award is to further motivate the trend of finding ready-to-use, fossil-free, sustainable material solutions with a low carbon footprint. Eastman molecular recycling technologies was selected as a nominee and won third place for the Renewable Material of the Year 2022 award.
Fast Company named Eastman's molecular recycling technology as an Honorable Mention for its 2022 World Changing Ideas Award in North America. The World Changing Ideas nominees are all projects that show how North American companies are working to make the world a better place. This recognition further inspires us to continue our materials revolution to help address the global plastic waste crisis.
Eastman released its second annual Inclusion & Diversity report. Read it here: In 2022 we are focused on building a more robust racially and ethnically diverse talent pool by increasing investments in diversity sourcing, requiring diverse candidate slates, and strengthening partnerships with universities, racially/ethnically diverse campus organizations and FOSSI. Through a root-cause analysis, we are working to understand better the drivers of internal talent movement and turnover. We want to ensure the strong talent we bring in are retained and growing throughout their careers. We have made gains in our gender representation across the organization over the past year. One area of focus has been increasing the number women who make the transition from individual contributor to manager, and in this area, we’ve had the most progress. We also are seeing strong progression at the most senior levels of the organization. We will continue to emphasize diverse candidate slates for internal and external roles and invest in women’s professional development and career growth.
Eastman has been named a 2022 CIO 100 award winner. For more than 30 years, the CIO 100 awards from CIO magazine have recognized innovative organizations around the world that exemplify the highest level of strategic and operational excellence in IT. The CIO 100 awards specifically honored Eastman for its innovative Fluid Genius, a revolutionary new patent-pending digital product that equips engineers and plant operations managers with predictive insights and recommendations to optimize heat transfer fluid system performance. “This is an incredible honor for our teams,” said Eastman VP and Chief Information Officer Aldo Noseda. “Digital products and services like Fluid Genius are critical to Eastman becoming a leading material innovation company because of the value they provide to our customers and how they differentiate us from competitors. Receiving this CIO 100 award is both humbling and rewarding.”
Eastman is ranked No. 21 in Fortune magazine's 2021 Change the World list, which recognizes companies that have a positive social impact through activities that are part of their core business strategy. Fortune identified Eastman as a company that is changing the world through advanced recycling technologies that process hard-to-recycle plastics and reduce the company's carbon footprint. One of the key factors Fortune uses to evaluate companies for impact is "measurable social impact," which carries extra weight in the magazine's evaluations. In determining the list, Fortune editors and writers use that factor to consider "the reach, nature and durability of the company's impact on one or more specific societal problems." Eastman was selected for the Change the World list because the company has innovated advanced recycling technologies that are processing hard-to-recycle plastics that have previously been destined for landfill, incineration or end up in the environment. Eastman has committed to recycle more than 250 million pounds of plastic waste annually by 2025.
JUST Capital, along with its media partner CNBC, released the annual JUST 100, recognizing Eastman for its commitment to address key environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues Americans care about most through its ongoing engagement with employees, customers, communities, the environment, and shareholders. The JUST 100 is the only ranking that honors companies doing right by all their stakeholders as defined by the American public. Through vigorous, objective analysis, JUST Capital, in partnership with CNBC, evaluates and celebrates U.S. corporations that outperform on the issues that matter most to the American public – such as creating jobs in the U.S., paying a fair, living wage, prioritizing accountability to all stakeholders, protecting worker health and safety, providing benefits and work-life balance, cultivating a diverse and inclusive workplace, producing sustainable products, and protecting customer privacy.
Eastman has received a score of 100 on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation's 2022 Corporate Equality Index, the nation's foremost benchmarking survey and report measuring corporate policies and practices related to LGBTQ+ workplace equality. Eastman joins the ranks of over 840 major U.S. businesses that also earned top marks this year. The results of the 2022 CEI showcase how 1,271 U.S.-based companies are not only promoting LGBTQ+-friendly workplace policies in the U.S., but also for the 56% of CEI-rated companies with global operations who are helping advance the cause of LGBTQ+ inclusion in workplaces abroad. Eastman's efforts in satisfying all of the CEI's criteria earned a 100 percent ranking and the designation as one of the Best Places to Work for LGBTQ+ Equality. n 2002, the first year of the CEI, only 13 companies achieved a top-score, demonstrating the incredible impact the CEI has had on the business world over its 20-year life. This year's CEI reflects growth across every measurement category.
French President Emmanuel Macron and Eastman Board Chair and CEO Mark Costa will jointly announce Eastman's plan to invest up to $1 billion in a material-to-material molecular recycling facility in France. This facility would use Eastman's polyester renewal technology to recycle up to 160,000 metric tonnes annually of hard-to-recycle plastic waste that is currently being incinerated. The investment would recycle enough plastic waste annually to fill Stade de France national football stadium 2.5 times, while also creating virgin-quality material with a significantly lower carbon footprint. Eastman is the largest investor at this year's "Choose France" event, which is focused on attracting foreign investment to France. This multi-phase project includes units that would prepare mixed plastic waste for processing, a methanolysis unit to depolymerize the waste, and polymer lines to create a variety of first-quality materials for specialty, packaging, and textile applications.
Eastman ranks No. 27 on Barron’s 2021 list of the Most Sustainable Companies in the United States. To arrive at its list of the 100 Most Sustainable Companies, Barron’s analyzed performance by the 1,000 largest U.S. publicly traded companies on a wide range of indicators related to sustainability and environment, social and corporate governance (ESG). Barron’s collaborated on the list with Calvert Research and Management, which analyzed data in five categories: shareholders, employees, customers, community and planet. An investment firm that specializes in sustainability and ESG investing, Calvert’s data analysis included company scores on distinct topics within those five categories. Those topics included such areas as policies on greenhouse gas emissions, energy use and efficiency, workplace diversity, business ethics, product quality and product safety, lifecycle of products, workplace safety, and others.
