Xylem’s latest Sustainability Report tracks progress in addressing global water challenges.
Solutions from Xylem have helped prevent more than 500 billion gallons of polluted water from flooding communities in 2021, according to the company’s annual Sustainability Report. The report highlighted the company’s work with its customers and partners to address the world’s greatest water challenges and details Xylem’s progress to reduce its operational footprint, including cutting Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emission intensity by 12% and water use by 22&, versus 2019.
Patrick Decker, president and CEO of Xylem, said: “We have a responsibility to make a difference, working alongside our customers and partners and communities we all serve. That’s why our sustainability report is more than a set of numbers. It’s a report card on the difference we’re making, together, and a dashboard of progress in our mission to solve water.
“Last year, we intensified our efforts around three key areas. First, we’re helping our customers become more effective stewards of their water resources, particularly through our digitally enabled solutions and services. Second, we’re addressing climate mitigation by helping decarbonise the water sector through high-efficiency technologies and our own net-zero carbon commitments. Lastly, we continue to work to advance equitable access to clean water and sanitation around the globe.”
Xylem provides advanced solutions and services that enable utilities, industrial companies and other water consumers to optimise their networks while achieving their own sustainability goals. As one of many examples, in 2021, Xylem’s technologies helped customers reuse more than 285 billion gallons of water. Building on its work to accelerate the decarbonisation of the water sector, the company’s solutions helped its customers reduce their carbon footprint by 0.73 million metric tons of CO2.
Last year, Xylem formalised its commitment to achieving net zero carbon emissions across its own value chain before 2050. In addition to reducing its Scope 1 and 2 net GHG emission intensity by 12&, Xylem revealed it is now running more than half of its major facilities on 100% renewable electricity. In 2021, the company embarked on an ambitious fleet electrification programme which delivered a 31% reduction in fleet GHG emissions in Europe in its first year of the programme and cut fleet GHG emissions in the US by 19%.
Claudia Toussaint, chief people and sustainability officer for Xylem, concluded: “2021 was a year in which we continued to operationalise our sustainability commitments throughout the organisation. We built more robust internal reporting and controls, established subject matter expertise across functional areas like product development, operations and supply chain, and integrated sustainability into all that we do – from the factory floor to the boardroom.
“Crucially, we also took steps to structure our workplace in a way that best supports the personal and professional growth of our diverse, 17,000-strong team – the driving force in our mission to solve water.”
