As makers of environment-friendly clothing materials, we want to make sustainable fashion accessible to all. But this goal goes beyond just manufacturing eco-conscious materials. It’s a promise to future generations to always innovate, collaborate, and try to be part of the solution to the world’s most pressing sustainability issues. That’s why, with Eastman Naia™, we are mapping our sustainability goals with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which act as a blueprint for achieving a better, more sustainable future for everyone.
The United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the blueprint to help achieve a better, more sustainable future for everyone. These goals address global challenges, including poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace, and justice. The Eastman Naia™ team recognizes our responsibility to participate in positive change and will contribute to the achievement of the SDGs.
The SDGs guide the Naia™ sustainability efforts in three critical impact areas:
- Mitigating climate change
- Mainstreaming circularity
- Caring for society
With our Naia™ sustainability goals, we are contributing to these core SDGs:
Mitigating climate change
In support of the UN sustainable development goals to urgently combat climate change and its impacts, our goal is to lower the greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint of the current Naia™ cellulosic fiber portfolio by 40% by 2030.
To strengthen the implementation of and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development, we plan to establish at least three agreements with customers to make measurable environmental impacts by 2025.
As a company that supports the Paris Climate Agreement, Eastman’s overall corporate goal is to reduce our absolute GHG Scope 1 and 2 emissions by one-third by 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Molecular recycling technologies will be key to meeting the 2030 goal—as well as leveraging our award-winning energy efficiency programs.
Mainstreaming circularity
To ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns, our sustainability goals for Naia™ acetate fiber include:
- Expanding the Naia™ portfolio to include an enhanced sustainability fiber with increased recycled content, progressively increasing the recycled-content feedstock proportions in our portfolio
- Increasing our Naia™ Renew cellulosic fiber, made through molecular recycling, to be 50% of our portfolio by 2025 and more than 90% by 2030
- Ensuring that more than 25% of recycled content is derived from waste textiles by 2025
To build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and foster innovation, our goals for Naia™ include:
- Investing more than 75% of our textiles R&D resources in circular solutions by 2025
- Enabling advanced technology and information solutions for “track and trace” of materials from forest floors and recycled feedstocks to factory doors by 2022
Material circularity is a critical global issue, and Eastman is focused on mainstreaming circularity through our molecular recycling technologies. Overall, Eastman’s goal is to recycle more than 500 million pounds of plastic waste annually by 2030 via molecular recycling technologies—with a commitment to recycling 250 million pounds annually by 2025. We will continue to be a catalyst for improvement in recycling systems by continuing to expand our ability to recycle more complex products and participating in initiatives and collaborations to drive increased collection.
Through our molecular recycling technologies, we can recycle almost any kind of plastic an infinite number of times. By mainstreaming circularity, we can make big strides in eliminating plastic and textile waste.
But we recognize we cannot do it alone. That is why Eastman is seeking collaborations with others across the value chain—including others in the industry, governments, and NGOs—to accelerate the circular economy the planet desperately needs.
Caring for society
We remain committed to supporting the UN’s sustainable development goal to protect, restore, and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems; sustainably manage forests; combat desertification; halt and reverse land degradation; and halt biodiversity loss. To do this, we will proactively engage in advocacy and programs to protect forest ecosystems and support thriving communities through membership and contribution to man-made cellulosic fiber initiatives, supporting the United Nations Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) policy.
To achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls, we plan to have an annual partnership that sponsors education and champions business start-ups for emerging, talented, sustainability-minded designers. We also will annually publish and commit to improving our diversity and inclusion metrics.
To ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns, we will maintain our commitment to zero discharge of hazardous chemicals and the use of certified wood pulp in the manufacture of Naia™ sustainable fibers.
To ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all, we will drive industry advancement in chemical usage and water quality in the production of man-made cellulosic fibers.
Corporate-wide, Eastman will continue to serve our communities and society in a number of ways, including our commitment to achieving racial equity in our industry and gender parity in alignment with our commitment to Paradigm for Parity®, a coalition of business leaders dedicated to addressing the corporate leadership gender gap.
Moreover, we will continue to drive new product innovations that advance solutions for society’s most pressing needs while ensuring product safety and transparency—such as products that help hydrate, feed, and care for a growing population in a sustainable way. After all, sustainable innovation is foundational to everything we do in our mission to enhance the quality of life in a material way.
Sustainability is woven into our approach.
Meanwhile, we will continue to manufacture Naia™ cellulosic fibers through sustainable sourcing of wood pulp from certified forests and plantations, safe and environmentally sound chemical use in a closed-loop system, an optimized manufacturing process with low carbon and water footprints, and certified biodegradability to return Naia™ to nature at the end of life. Our molecular recycling technologies enable us to create innovative fibers with 40% certified recycled content* from plastic waste and 60% sustainably sourced wood pulp.
We will continue to proactively play our part in creating a healthy fashion industry that mitigates climate change and mainstreams circularity and cares for society.
And at Eastman, we will transform tomorrow by revolutionizing the materials that shape it today.
*Naia™ Renew recycled content is achieved by allocation of recycled waste materials using an ISCC-certified mass balance process.
