US: Owens Corning has released its 5th annual Sustainability Report, outlining the company's environmental footprint reduction performance. "Our 2010 Sustainability Report demonstrates Owens Corning's continued focus on and progress towards improvements in greening our operations and products and accelerating energy efficiency and renewables penetration in the built environment," said Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer Frank O'Brien-Bernini. "We have met three of our seven goals already and are confident that six of the seven goals will be achieved by 2012."
Among the key accomplishments highlighted in the report is a 24% intensity reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared to 2009 levels. The company removed 950,000t of CO2 from its operations in 2010, which is equivalent to eliminating the CO2 impact of more than 170,000 passenger cars. The report also detailed progress towards intensity reductions in energy usage, and reductions in nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, particulate matter, waste-to-landfill contributions and water usage.
The company took the opportunity to launch a new set of 2020 goals designed to raise the bar on its commitment to sustainability. The announced 2020 goals will target reductions in energy, greenhouse gas, water, toxic air emissions, particulate matter and waste-to-landfill measures, as well as supplier sustainability and life cycle assessments.
"These new goals raise the bar on our commitment to sustainability and reflect an increasingly holistic approach that encompasses how our company operates, the attributes of our products and our desire to affect change by partnering with our customers and suppliers to deliver sustainable solutions," added O'Brien-Bernini.
The disagreement comes at the same time as the publication of an article in the journal Respirology that warns of massive rises in deaths from asbestos-related lung diseases in Asia in the coming decades. Dr Ken Takahashi, Acting Director of the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Occupational Health (WHOCCOH) and his team put together data on asbestos use in 47 Asian countries for the report.
Asian countries accounted for 64% of the global consumption of asbestos in 2001-2007, a striking increase from 14% between 1920 and 1970. This is the result of unregulated asbestos import and use in many Asian countries.
