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Company Information

Environmental Highlights


Management System

3M's Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) Management System promotes sound environmental management at our facilities worldwide. It helps us address changing customer needs and expectations as we continue to drive sustainable growth. The EHS Management System:

  • includes an integrated, holistic system that anticipates and addresses long-term issues and drives continuous improvement
  • promotes a strategic planning process that integrates EHS issues into business unit strategic plans
  • requires each business unit to identify EHS issues, develop formal action plans, set goals and measure results
  • requires a Life Cycle Management review of all new products and of existing products on a prioritised basis.

Environmental Targets for 2005

As a part of the EHS Management System, 3M's corporate-wide Environmental Targets 2005 take over where year 2000 environmental achievements left off. These assume a much broader approach to addressing environmental issues. The corporate environmental targets are stretch goals directed at reducing our environmental impact on top of significant progress already made.

Global Five Year Targets 2001-2005
(Based on Year 2000 and normalised to net sales):

  • improve energy efficiency by 20 per cent
  • reduce waste by 25 per cent
  • reduce volatile organic air emissions by 25 per cent
    (3M achieved a 93 per cent reduction in 2000 from a 1990 base)
  • double the number of Pollution Prevention Pays (3P) projects from the previous five-year period from 194 to 400 projects.

Life Cycle Management

An integral part of the new EHS Management System is Life Cycle Management (LCM). Instead of only focusing on the manufacturing process to control environmental, health, safety and energy effects, the spotlight is now on products throughout their entire life cycle, from manufacturing through customer use and disposal. 3M has adopted a Life Cycle Management Policy requiring all business units to conduct LCM reviews for all new products and to conduct LCM reviews on existing products on a prioritised basis. LCM reviews of all existing products must be completed by 2010.

ISO Certification

Eight UK manufacturing sites are accredited to the voluntary international ISO 14001 Environmental Management System standard: Atherstone, Aycliffe, Bangor, Bedford, Clitheroe, Gorseinon and Loughborough.