Our Every Life Ambition
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We are committed to improving our business, our planet, and every life.
Sustaining our business, and our planet, means protecting natural resources and empowering individuals and communities throughout the world to encourage progress. And above all else, it means uniting under a common goal: improve every life.
Imagine a world where every life is improved— where natural resources are readily available, people have access to education and opportunity, and communities are safe, healthy, connected, and thriving.
We aim to help make that world a reality. Improving every life is an exciting endeavor and our purpose.
This is the continued story of our purpose:
#improvinglives.
Global Challenges
At 3M, we look at Sustainability in terms of shared global needs and the future of our business.
As the population grows, particularly in emerging economies, challenges like energy availability and security, raw material scarcity, human health and safety, education, and development must be addressed to assure people across the globe can lead healthy fulfilling lives. We recognize that our impact includes that of our own operations as well as the far greater impacts we can make through our efforts in local communities and for our customers through the products we offer.
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Raw Materials
The world’s population is growing larger, living longer — and consuming more. With this increased pressure on our finite natural resources and materials, we must move beyond low-cost, recyclable materials to renewable products. Companies that address this issue not only help the planet, but they also gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
Improving raw material usage through product design and operational considerations provides benefits throughout the supply chain in material use, energy, and transportation efficiency.
We will continue to innovate into the future, developing renewable alternatives for impacted resources, revolutionizing recyclable materials, and becoming more sustainable.
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Water
People consume it, farm with it, and manufacture products with it. Reducing water consumption and improving water quality are important elements of water stewardship. Aging infrastructure and increased demand are at the forefront to assure socially equitable, environmental sustainable, and economically beneficial use and treatment of water.
Some of our customers are finding it difficult to source or deliver clean, accessible water. We can help them solve this problem by developing technology that increases water efficiencies and improves quality.
We will continue to work to reduce our corporate water footprint and offer products that enhance water quality, thereby respecting this important resource.
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Climate & Energy
Access to a dependable energy supply directly affects all businesses and communities. From air emissions to fossil fuels, 3M takes a proactive and collaborative approach to addressing energy demand and climate change — in our operations and for our customers.
Energy usage and climate concerns require systematic change, and we’re here to help drive that forward. Partnering with our customers will help us understand their needs and address those needs. The issues around effective use of energy resources and climate change are complex and interconnected.
We will continue to seek solutions that promote energy conservation, clean energy infrastructure, and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
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Health & Safety
Global health and safety issues are prevalent in workplaces around the world. Governments, corporations, and consumers are driving global demand for safety, protection, healthcare, and food safety solutions. Creative innovation, technology, education, and collaboration are all critical if we are to tackle these human health and workplace safety concerns.For decades, 3M has had entire business divisions focused on creating products and services for human health, protection, security, and safety. We are committed to helping improve the health and safety of people worldwide so we can all focus on what matters most to us.
We also embrace this commitment for our own operations, and to that end, will continue to take steps to protect our most important asset – 3M employees.
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Education & Development
At 3M, we believe science is just science until you use it to improve the world with the products and services we offer. Our science not only impacts our customers, but also makes a difference in the way we work.
As a technology company, 3M recognizes the importance of well-trained science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) graduates as well as the critical need for a skilled workforce in advanced manufacturing and vocational skills — we need bright minds to step into specialized roles and help our company and our customers solve future challenges.
We will continue to support empowerment and enrichment to enable people everywhere the opportunity to live life to their fullest potential.
Materiality
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Our Commitment
At 3M, we look at Sustainability in terms of shared global needs and the future of our business. As the population grows, particularly in emerging economies, challenges like energy availability, raw material scarcity, human health and safety, education, and employment must be addressed to assure people across the globe can lead healthy, fulfilling lives.Our materiality assessment is a vital component of our Sustainability strategy and reporting, whether the issues are a result of our own activities or our business relationships and is based on a robust, stakeholder-driven approach. By understanding the critical issues from both internal and external perspectives, we can deepen our social license to operate and develop corporate strategy, goals, targets, programs, initiatives, and a stakeholder engagement strategy to advance Sustainability globally.
Data provided in our Sustainability Report includes information on issues that were found through the materiality assessment to have the highest potential to impact our reputation and that are of great importance to internal and external stakeholders. Because we are a diversified company, several other environmental-related topics and performance indicators relevant to various sectors of the company are also included in the report. 3M’s Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer reviews and approves our Sustainability Report.