We continue to strengthen our efforts to reduce Eaton’s environmental footprint and enhance our workplaces through our structured, global Management System for Environment, Safety and Health (MESH).
During 2009, we increased focus on our Industrial Sector facilities in North America—among our largest consumers of energy—and expanded our EHS training, site assessments and project evaluations in Europe. Through year-end, we had identified and funded 109 energy-saving projects in Europe alone, reducing our annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at those facilities by a projected 10,500 metric tons.
We also launched a “Green IT” initiative, aimed at increasing the energy efficiency of our information technology infrastructure, as well as improving its materials and resource efficiency, and waste and supplier management. From mid-2008 through 2009, the program enabled us to remove 667 servers from our IT environment, reducing our annual power consumption by more than 4.4 million kilowatt-hours, and decreasing our annual carbon dioxide emissions by 2,685 metric tons.
On an absolute basis, we improved our performance across each of our key EHS metrics in 2009, reducing our:
- Greenhouse gas emissions • (GHG) by 21.8 percent.
- Waste generation by 24.2 percent.
- Water consumption by 24.5 percent.
- Work-related injuries or illnesses by • 32.0 percent; and work-related injuries or illnesses that required one or more days away from work by 39.2 percent. We experienced one fatality.
When indexed to sales, however, these gains were erased by our significant decline in revenues. Applying this common indexing method, our GHG emissions increased by 7.5 percent during the year; waste generation increased by 4.4 percent; and water consumption increased by 4.0 percent.
Despite this impact, we have still reduced our annual GHG emissions by 7.6 percent, indexed to sales, since our benchmark year of 2006. We maintain our pledge to reduce our GHG emissions by 18 percent, indexed to sales, by 2012, as a member of Business Roundtable’s Climate RESOLVE initiative.
Our 2010 goals (indexed to sales and expressed as a comparison to 2009 results, except for safety data) include:
- Reduce GHGemissions by 6 percent.
- Reduce waste generation by 3percent.
- Reduce water consumption by 3percent.
- Improve our Total Recordable Case Rate to1.0 and improve our Days Away Case Rate to 0.2.
Progress is updated quarterly.