​​Distribution safety

Eastman is committed to ensuring the highest sustainability and safety standards possible throughout our global operations and supply chain, including transportation safety and logistics optimization.

Just as our customers are increasingly requiring us to enhance our sustainable performance, we work with suppliers in a variety of ways to achieve sustainability excellence:

• Doing Business with Eastman Supplier Code of Conduct: Distributed annually, the document defines corporate expectations related to business ethics as well as environmental and social responsibility. It also sets the expectation that all suppliers join Eastman in adopting sustainable practices and programs.
  
  
• Focus on renewable materials a​nd packaging improvements: Eastman’s commitment to sustainability is demonstrated in our material and service sourcing strategies. We are committed to using materials that are less expensive, renewable and safe. Eastman’s supply chain packaging team is committed to developing and using packaging materials that are reusable, recyclable and reduce waste.
  
  
• Alternative methods of supply: Eastman has a dedicated team of experts who identify alternate methods of supply. We examine the life cycle of the transportation “legs” of suppliers across the globe to eliminate unnecessary shipments by truck, rail and ocean liners when we can. This same team manages Eastman’s sale of by-products and wide specification material to converters who recover and convert material into useful products that would otherwise become waste.
  
  
• Supplier Excellence Award for Sustainability: Eastman encourages its suppliers to deliver value-adding products and solutions with a focus on sustainability. This award recognizes suppliers who have demonstrated a significant and new improvement in at least one of the following key areas of impact: waste and recycling; natural resources/materials content; and energy and emissions.
  
  
• Transportation safety: As part of our continued commitment to outstanding operations, we identify, assess and take steps to mitigate transport-associated risks throughout our organization.
  
  Eastman monitors the rate of distribution incidents involved in the shipment of its products, including those that are considered hazardous by the U.S. Department of Transportation and other international and regional regulatory authorities. As a result, we have steadily reduced our rate of distribution incidents and improved the overall safety of our global supply chain. We consistently receive chemical safety transportation excellence awards from major railroads in the U.S. (UP, CSX, NS and BNSF) and from maritime service providers. To be eligible for these awards, a company must ship a large number of hazardous materials without any non-accident-related releases.
  
  Improvements in performance have resulted from our enhanced carrier qualification and assessment program, a proactive railcar maintenance and tank car closure program, continual distribution incident trend analysis and from our service provider performance feedback program. In 2021, Eastman reported 0.08 distribution incidents per thousand shipments.