Sustainability is not new to Sherwin-Williams – it is reflected in our core values and embedded in our culture and business practices. We maintain an enterprise-wide and science-based approach to continuous improvement and are committed to building long-term, sustainable shareholder value.

The Sherwin-Williams Company culture is built on trust, respect, execution and inclusion – which guide our commitment to take care of our customers, respect our employees and the environment, create value for our customers, employees and shareholders and support the communities in which we live and work. 

Sustainability is rooted in our values and our way of doing business. We embrace an enterprise-wide approach, integrating sustainability into our worldwide business operations and embedding it in our product innovation and product delivery processes. We believe that sustainability makes good business sense.

We have the commitment, strategy, goals and programs in place to drive progress in our top tier focus areas of: Climate and Footprint (within our Environmental Stewardship pillar); Product Stewardship and Life Cycle Assessment (within our Product Blueprint pillar); and Occupational Health and Safety and Talent Acquisition and Employee Engagement (within our Social Imprint pillar). 

Our meaningful goals address global issues of critical importance, including doing our part to address climate change by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, increasing energy efficiency and use of renewable energy, minimizing our waste and accelerating development of “sustainably advantaged products.” We are also building additional momentum by enhancing our culture of inclusion, diversity and equity; continuously improving our occupational health and safety metrics; and strengthening our engagement with communities where we operate around the world.

• 2030 Environmental Footprint Reduction Goals
  • Reduce absolute Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 30%
    
  • Increase energy from renewable sources to 50% of total electricity usage
  • Increase operational energy efficiency by 20%
  • Reduce waste disposal intensity by 25%

• Product Blueprint Philosophy and 2022 Highlights
  • Established the Sustainability by Design Stage-Gate Process as a standard part of the product innovation and development processes
  • Enhanced the supplier engagement component of our Product Blueprint strategy
  • Refined our definition of “sustainably advantaged products” to be clearer and more verifiable – with the Sherwin-Williams definition as “products that achieve a level of third-party green chemistry, ecolabel or similar recognition”
  • Enhanced our culture of internal engagement to further embed sustainability into the business and into our products

• Social Imprint Goals and Aspirations
  • Reduce recordable case rate to 0.8 by 2025
  • Reduce ergonomic injuries by implementing two ergonomic interventions per year in each manufacturing site
  • Increase women in management roles to 30% by 2025
  • Increase underrepresented racial/ethnic groups in U.S. management roles to 30% by 2025
  • Achieve and improve upon a favorable score on the Sherwin-Williams Inclusion Index (based on results of our global employee engagement survey)
  • Foster economic inclusion for underrepresented suppliers

In the spirit of continuous improvement, the Sustainability by Design program will enable us to evolve our products and processes to deliver and grow our sustainably advantaged product offering. We recently refined our definition of "sustainably advantaged products" to be clearer and more verifiable – with the Sherwin-Williams definition as "products that achieve a level of third-party green chemistry, ecolabel or similar recognition."

We participate in various regional and industry trade associations such as the American Coatings Association (ACA); the European Council of the Paint, Printing Ink and Artists’ Colours Industry (CEPE); the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA); the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM); and groups such as the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). This active involvement demonstrates our commitment to collaborate and share ideas within the industry and other groups about the connection points between public policy and our focus on technical innovation. This engagement also informs the development of our strategies for addressing current and emerging trends, risks and opportunities and complying with applicable laws, regulations and requirements relating to the environment and climate change.

We are communicating our approach to sustainability and incorporating sustainability into our earliest design processes through the following internal programs:

• S-W Cares: Enterprise-Wide EHS Excellence
  • Company’s enterprise-wide initiative to communicate our approach to occupational health and safety and serves as a roadmap for achieving environmental, health and safety excellence across the Company. It provides a leadership governance structure built around a common language that is supported by tools to continuously track and measure our efforts to enable safe workplaces, protect the environment and meet or exceed regulatory requirements. Our S-W Cares initiative is backed by formal systems and programs – like the TLC Stay Safe Out There initiative – to encourage employees to proactively “find, own, fix and report” workplace hazards before they lead to an incident.
  • The principles of S-W Cares include:
    • Safe Employees
    • Healthy Planet
    • Responsible Operations

• Sustainability by Design
  
  • Our Sustainability by Design program embeds life cycle thinking, which considers impacts throughout our value chain, into the earliest stages of our product innovation and development processes. From initial concept through commercialization, we identify ways to make our products more sustainable and better performing by evaluating health and safety considerations, chemical formulations, resource conservation, circularity and product performance, among other areas. 2022 was focused on program refinements and expanding stakeholder engagement to deliver better sustainability outcomes.
  • Our 2022 highlights included the following:
    • Established the Sustainability by Design Stage-Gate Process as a standard part of the product innovation and development processes
    • Enhanced the supplier engagement component of our Product Blueprint strategy
    • Refined our definition of “sustainably advantaged products” to be clearer and more verifiable – with the Sherwin-Williams definition as “products that achieve a level of third-party green chemistry, ecolabel or similar recognition”
    • Enhanced our culture of internal engagement to further embed sustainability into the business and into our products

Each year, Sherwin-Williams drivers traverse millions of miles to bring paint and coatings from manufacturing and distribution centers to our stores and, ultimately, to customers.  Within our Global Supply Chain (GSC) division, company leadership is championing driver safety and has encouraged the Driver Safety Committee to highlight issues and provide solutions, with at least one driver representing each distribution center on the committee. Within The Americas Group (TAG), both commercial and non-commercial fleets are reducing preventable accidents. In 2022, our drivers recorded more than 88.6 million miles on the road, which equates to circling the Earth more than 3,500 times. We continue to adopt sophisticated fleet technology and training solutions designed to improve our fleet safety performance. The use of onboard cameras and tools in our fleet helps give drivers better visibility and navigational capabilities while operating our vehicles. These tools also help track and record driver behavior and performance for real-time alerts and feedback. This information can then be used to facilitate coaching opportunities to improve performance. The Driver Safety Committee is encouraged to identify the issues and challenges our drivers experience on the job and provide solutions. At least one driver represents each distribution center on the committee to incorporate driver feedback into fleet planning and strategy sessions.

The S-W Cares program, the TLC Stay Safe Out There campaign, our EHS Management System, fleet safety efforts and increased collaboration between divisions are instrumental in driving continuous improvement in safety performance at Sherwin-Williams.

The safety of our employees and customers isn’t just a priority – it’s a foundational value recognized at the highest levels of our organization and at every facility in which we operate. S-W Cares is our safety culture initiative that serves as a roadmap for achieving health and safety excellence across the Company. We continue to allocate resources, develop policies and institute governance measures in alignment with our S-W Cares program to drive progress toward delivery of our commitments.

Each letter in “cares” defines an expectation for our workforce to sustain and improve our safety performance. To embody S-W Cares, our leaders and teams must:

Champion – Lead by example

Act – Find, own, fix and report issues

Recognize – Reward individual and team efforts

Empower – Allow people the time to support a safe and healthy work environment

Share – Share successes and best practices

Our S-W Cares initiative is backed by formal systems and programs – like the TLC Stay Safe Out There initiative – to encourage employees to proactively “find, own, fix and report” workplace hazards before they lead to an incident.  Each employee is empowered to routinely review their workspace to identify and report potential safety hazards and to continually coach peers on behaviors so that corrective action can be taken as needed. We believe that safety is something that employees commit to every day, which is why we have continued to prioritize messaging and actions that reinforce our culture of safety across the organization. Additionally, every manufacturing site has a safety tactical plan and monthly training requirements that are specific to its operations. We monitor performance at all our facilities, and routinely review this information locally and at the highest levels of our organization to facilitate continuous improvement. We believe that access to safety data is critical to our operations, which is why we continue to invest in solutions that offer us a greater understanding of our performance and help us identify opportunities to improve.

In 2023, we are launching our new data management system to further enhance our reporting and oversight capabilities. This program will enhance our ability to find, own, fix and report health and safety issues. Within the software, there will also be dedicated learning and training modules and other easily accessible resources to help drive continued learning while promoting the safety and well-being of our employees.

Sherwin-Williams continuously strives to reduce waste in our operations. Our waste reduction efforts focus on two primary levers: 1) reducing the amount of waste that we generate, and 2) increasing our reuse and recycling. Every Sherwin-Williams manufacturing facility has waste reduction goals and associated projects and programs to meet those goals. Continuous improvement processes have been implemented to address quality control, reduce distressed batches and manage raw materials and finished product inventory, thereby eliminating the waste before it is generated.

Other waste reduction efforts include: the reuse and recycling of cleaning solvents; reworking paint into new batches; and recycling cardboard, paper, plastic and metal. Materials that become waste are managed in accordance with applicable regulations and corporate guidelines. Another key component of our product stewardship strategy is our participation in the PaintCare® paint recycling program, which we have been involved with since its inception in 2009. The nonprofit program is managed by the American Coatings Association (ACA) to recycle and properly manage post-consumer paint. More than 425 Sherwin-Williams stores currently participate in these paint recycling efforts as of end of 2021, serving as retail drop-off sites for customers and local communities. In 2021, more than 1 million gallons of paint were collected for recycling through PaintCare®.

Our EHS Management System covers all Sherwin-Williams facilities. Each of our three operating segments – Paint Stores Group (PSG), Consumer Brands Group (CBG) and Performance Coatings Group (PCG) – and our Global Supply Chain division within CBG manage EHS through the S-W Cares initiative, but tailor their approach to their specific risk profile.

Within PSG – the creation of a tactical EHS handbook and companion mobile app personalized for their unique operations allowed us to broadly standardize and communicate our expectations on the sales floor in our company-operated stores. We are enhancing safety leadership by adding an EHS leader to each of our five PSG divisions to support and oversee ongoing efforts. The introduction of the mobile app has improved the efficiency of inspections, increased visibility of the results and streamlined EHS data collection.

In 2022, we continued to unify our EHS efforts by rolling out our updated EHS Management System (EHSMS) across our Global Supply Chain (GSC) division. We are adding new tools and functionality to our EHSMS throughout 2023 and beyond to give our people the resources they need to succeed.

The EHSMS is divided into the essential components of Culture, Planning, Implementation and Operations, Verifications and Process Accountability, and Action Management and Continuous Improvement to help facilitate improvement within these select areas. The EHSMS contains a suite of processes and tools, including site plan templates, checklists and worksheets – which are adaptable for all parts of the organization. All manufacturing and distribution sites and technical centers must conform to our EHSMS, which is in strong alignment with third-party certifications, such as the ISO 14001 voluntary standard for environmental management and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP), and other best practices.

Along with the publication of our annual Sustainability Report, we have historically reported to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards and more recently have increased and enhanced our reporting to also align with the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) framework. In 2022, we also publish disclosures that align with the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) framework. View our TCFD disclosures here.