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DuPont and the Limits of Corporate Environmentalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 May 2019

Adam Rome
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Abstract

In 1989, Edgar Woolard began his tenure as chief executive of the chemical giant DuPont by calling for a new “corporate environmentalism.” DuPont has changed dramatically since then to become more environmentally sustainable, but the company still has a poor record in some areas. The sustainability push also had mixed financial consequences. Though eco-efficiencies saved DuPont billions of dollars, the effort to create more sustainable engines of corporate growth failed to meet Wall Street expectations. The DuPont story offers important insights into the difficulties of greening an established industrial enterprise.

Keywords

sustainabilityeco-efficiencygreenwashingchemical industryenvironmental activismcorporate strategypublic relationssustainable designpollutionwaste preventionclimate changeenergy userisk managementbiotechnology
Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 93 , Issue 1: Business and the Environment Revisited , Spring 2019 , pp. 75 - 99
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2019 

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Footnotes

I thank Roger Horowitz at the Hagley Museum and Archive for inviting me to help organize an inspirational 2014 conference about the intersection of business and environmental history and then giving me a chance to discuss my research in a 2018 Hagley workshop. I benefitted from comments after presentations at the Harvard Business School, MIT, Syracuse University, the University at Buffalo, and the 2017 American Society for Environmental History conference. Ann-Kristin Bergquist, and Geoffrey Jones, also offered helpful advice and encouragement.

References

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10 Adrian Kinnane, DuPont: From the Banks of the Brandywine to Miracles of Science (Wilmington, DE, 2002), 236, 238 (quotation); John Holusha, “Ed Woolard Walks DuPont's Tightrope,” New York Times, 14 Oct. 1990; Edgar S. Woolard Jr., interview by James G. Traynham, 10 June 1999, transcript, Chemical Heritage Foundation, https://oh.sciencehistory.org/oral-histories/woolard-jr-edgar-s; Carol Sanford, The Responsible Business: Reimagining Sustainability and Success (San Francisco, 2011), 177–80; Hoffman, From Heresy to Dogma, 85–86.

11 Esty and Winston, Green to Gold, 111; Murphy, Priscilla and Dee, Juliet, “DuPont and Greenpeace: The Dynamics of Conflict between Corporations and Activist Groups,” Journal of Public Relations Research 4, no. 1 (1992): 7–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Laszlo, Sustainable Value, 83. Woolard acknowledged that Greenpeace was a prod to reform in “Environmental Stewardship,” 2. Other DuPont employees also pointed to the first Toxic Release Inventory and the Greenpeace protests as motivators, according to a largely uncritical analysis of the company by the son of Woolard's successor: see Scot Holliday, “A Case Study of How DuPont Reduced Its Environmental Footprint: The Role of Organizational Change in Sustainability” (PhD diss., George Washington University, 2010), 75–79.

12 Hoffman, Andrew, Carbon Strategies: How Leading Corporations Are Reducing Their Climate-Change Footprint (Ann Arbor, 2007), 22CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 92; Laszlo, Sustainable Value, 83. The first questions about CFCs came in the early 1970s, and DuPont publicly promised in 1974 to stop producing them if their harmfulness ever was scientifically proved. See Parson, Edward A., Protecting the Ozone Layer: Science and Strategy (New York, 2003), 32–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Smart, Beyond Compliance, 188; Andrea Spencer-Cooke, “Hero of Zero,” Tomorrow Magazine 10 (Nov./Dec. 2000): 10–16; David Kirkpatrick, “Environmentalism: A New Crusade,” Fortune, 12 Feb. 1990; Hoffman, From Heresy to Dogma, 125; E. Bruce Harrison, Going Green: How to Communicate Your Company's Environmental Commitment (Homewood, IL, 1993), 50, 127. The quotation is from Holusha, “Ed Woolard Walks Du Pont's Tightrope.”

14 Senge et al., Necessary Revolution, 127; Hoffman, Carbon Strategies, 36, 93–101; Pooley, Eric, The Climate War: True Believers, Power Brokers, and the Fight to Save the Earth (New York, 2010), 140, 141, 156Google Scholar; Layzer, Judith A., “Deep Freeze: How Business Has Shaped the Global Warming Debate in Congress,” in Business and Environmental Policy: Corporate Interests in the American Political System, ed. Kraft, Michael E. and Kamieniecki, Sheldon (Cambridge, MA, 2007), 112–13Google Scholar, 117–18; Nicholas Varchaver, “Chemical Reaction,” Fortune, 22 Mar. 2007. Before Holliday's tenure, DuPont briefly belonged to the Global Climate Coalition, which opposed legislation.

15 Gilding, Paul, The Great Disruption: How the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World (New York, 2011), 152–55Google Scholar; Chad Holliday, “How Working with NGOs Made DuPont a Better Company,” Forbes, 29 Mar. 2010; Senge et al., Necessary Revolution, 127–28; Charles O. Holliday Jr, Stephan Schmidheiny, and Watts, Philip, Walking the Talk: The Business Case for Sustainable Development (San Francisco, 2002)Google Scholar.

16 Holliday, Chad, “Sustainable Growth, the DuPont Way,” Harvard Business Review 79 (Sept. 2001): 129–36Google ScholarPubMed; Smart, Beyond Compliance, 189; Senge et al., Necessary Revolution, 127–33; Harrigan, Kathryn Rudie, E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company: Cleaning House (Columbia CaseWorks CU127, New York, 2012), 1, 6–7Google Scholar; David Gelles, “DuPont to Split into 2 as It Plans to Spin Off a Major Segment,” New York Times, 24 Oct. 2013. The quotation is from Laszlo, Sustainable Value, 81–82.

17 DuPont, Science Meets Sustainability: DuPont 2013 Sustainability Progress Report (2013), 6, http://www.dupont.com/content/dam/assets/corporate-functions/our-approach/sustainability/documents/2013DuPont%20Sustainability%20Report_web.pdf. The critical literature about modern agriculture is immense. For a recent critique of DuPont and other agricultural biotech firms, see McKay Jenkins, Food Fight: GMOs and the Future of the American Diet (New York, 2018).

18 DuPont, Science Meets Sustainability, 8–9.

19 Senge et al., Necessary Revolution, 127. For the consultant's advice, see Gilding, Great Disruption, 152. In addition, see Laszlo, Sustainable Value, 86.

20 Varchaver, “Chemical Reaction.” See also Harrigan, Cleaning House.

21 Michael J. de la Merced, “DuPont Chief Executive Ellen Kullman to Retire,” New York Times, 5 Oct. 2015.

22 Holliday's eco-consultant came to a similar conclusion. See Gilding, Great Disruption, 154–55. The green-management literature overwhelmingly stresses the opportunities for improving bottom lines; however, a few scholars have acknowledged that the evidence about the profitability of sustainability initiatives is mixed. See, for example, Rebecca Henderson, “Making the Business Case for Environmental Sustainability,” in Leading Sustainable Change: An Organizational Perspective, ed. Rebecca Henderson, Ranjay Gulati, and Michael Tushman (New York, 2015), 22–23.

23 I am rounding the slightly different 2004 figures cited in two sources: Senge et al., Necessary Revolution, 126; and Laszlo, Sustainable Value, 84. For 2013, see DuPont, Science Meets Sustainability, 5.

24 Willard, Bob, The Sustainability Advantage: Seven Business Case Benefits of a Triple Bottom Line (Gabriola Island, BC, 2002)Google Scholar, 60, 77; Laszlo, Chris and Zhexembayeva, Nadya, Embedded Sustainability: The Next Big Competitive Advantage (Stanford, 2011), 60–61Google Scholar; Hoffman, Carbon Strategies, 97; Doyle, Trespass against Us, 238. Woolard called his goals a “stretch.” See Smart, Beyond Compliance, 196. I discuss the skepticism in the next paragraph.

25 Ross and Amter, Polluters, 135, 138–39; Doyle, Hold the Applause, 11, 22–25; Woolard, “Environmental Stewardship,” 13; Shields, David, Heller, Miriam, Kite, Devaun, and Beloff, Beth, “Environmental Accounting Case Study: DuPont,” in Green Ledgers: Case Studies of Corporate Environmental Accounting, ed. Ditz, Daryl, Ranganathan, Janet, and Banks, R. Darryl (Washington, DC, 1995), 123–38Google Scholar; Esty and Winston, Green to Gold, 158–59. The quotation is from Woolard, Edgar S., “Creating Corporate Environmental Change,” The Bridge 29 (Spring 1999): 10Google Scholar.

26 Woolard, “Creating Corporate Environmental Change,” 11; Shields et al., “Environmental Accounting Case Study,” 123–38; Schmidheiny, Stephan and Zorraquin, Federico J. L., Financing Change: The Financial Community, Eco-Efficiency, and Sustainable Development (Cambridge, MA, 1996), 70–71Google Scholar; Holliday, “Sustainable Growth”; Paul Tebo, interview with author, Jan. 2016.

27 Hoffman, Carbon Strategies, 92–95, 99–101.

28 The most extensive treatment of DuPont's history with C8 is Sharon Lerner's three-part series, “The Teflon Toxin,” The Intercept (Aug. 2015 to Sept. 2015), https://theintercept.com/series/the-teflon-toxin/. Lerner has reported further on DuPont in a continuing series on “Bad Chemistry,” https://theintercept.com/collections/bad-chemistry/. In addition, I am drawing on Nathaniel Rich, “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare,” New York Times Magazine, 6 Jan. 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/magazine/the-lawyer-who-became-duponts-worst-nightmare.html; Mariah Blake, “Welcome to Beautiful Parkersburg, West Virginia,” Huffington Post, 27 Aug. 2015, https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/welcome-to-beautiful-parkersburg/; and Roy Shapira and Luigi Zingales, Is Pollution Value-Maximizing? The DuPont Case (Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State New Working Paper Series No. 13, Chicago, 2017). Shapira and Zingales have posted key documents online, including a memo about the fateful 1984 meeting: see https://research.chicagobooth.edu/stigler/research/working-papers/dupont.

29 Jeff Montgomery and Jeff Mordock, “Chemours Launch Spurs Anxiety over Pollution Cleanups,” Wilmington News Journal, 3 July 2015; James M. O'Neill and Scott Fallon, “Toxic Secrets: Pollution, Evasion, and Fear in North Jersey,” NorthJersey.com, 14 Feb, 2018, https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/watchdog/2018/02/14/dupont-pompton-lakes-pollution/806921001/. O'Neill and Fallon also wrote three other stories for the “Toxic Secrets” series, all published the same day.

30 Varchaver, “Chemical Reaction”; “Solar Flair,” DuPont Magazine 92, no. 2 (1998): 9–11; Hoffman, Carbon Strategies, 95, 134. The quotation is from “It Starts with a Little Imagination,” DuPont Magazine 90 (Nov./Dec. 1996): 15.

31 Truman Semans and Andre de Fontaine, Innovating through Alliance: A Case Study of the DuPont-BP Partnership on Biofuels (Pew Center on Global Climate Change White Paper, Sept. 2009), 26, https://www.c2es.org/document/innovating-through-alliance-a-case-study-of-the-dupont-bp-partnership-on-biofuels/. For a timeline of DuPont's biotech initiatives, see “Our History,” DuPont website, accessed 21 Feb. 2019, http://biosciences.dupont.com/our-story/history.

32 Varchaver, “Chemical Reaction.” Varchaver dates the development of Sorona from 1993, and DuPont might well have begun to think about a greener fiber then. But the joint venture with Genencor began in 1995, so I date product development from that point. For the EPA award, see “Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award Recipients by Technology,” EPA website, accessed 21 Feb. 2019, https://www.epa.gov/greenchemistry/presidential-green-chemistry-challenge-award-recipients-technology.

33 Maxx Chatsko, “DuPont's Next Big Idea Could Be Huge for Coca-Cola,” Motley Fool, 2 Aug. 2017, https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/08/02/duponts-next-big-idea-could-be-huge-for-coca-cola.aspx; Maxx Chatsko, “Investors Beware: 3 Renewable Products that Destroy the ‘Green Premium’ Myth,” Motley Fool, 21 Feb. 2015, https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/02/21/investors-beware-3-renewable-products-that-destroy.aspx; Debra Cobb, “Sustainability Imperatives Drive Textile Innovation,” Advanced Textile Source, 22 Dec. 2016, https://advancedtextilessource.com/2016/12/22/sustainability-imperatives-drive-textile-innovation/; “Creating a Sustainable Brand,” Brownstein Group website, accessed 21 Feb. 2019, https://www.brownsteingroup.com/work/sorona/; “Better Living through Chemurgy,” Economist, 26 June 2008, https://www.economist.com/business/2008/06/26/better-living-through-chemurgy.

34 Semans and de Fontaine, “Innovating through Alliance”; Varchaver, “Chemical Reaction.”

35 Karl Baker, “DuPont Bets on Billion-Dollar Ethanol Industry,” Wilmington News Journal, 28 Aug. 2015; Semans and de Fontaine, “Innovating through Alliance”; Maxx Chatsko, “These 2 Big Oil Companies Just Got the Cold Shoulder from the EPA,” Motley Fool, 21 Aug. 2014, https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/08/21/these-2-big-oil-companies-just-got-the-cold-should.aspx; Butamax, “BP and DuPont Joint Venture, Butamax, Announces Next Step in Commercialization of Bio-Isobutanol with Acquisition of Ethanol Facility in Kansas,” press release, 3 Aug. 2017, http://www.butamax.com/latest-news-updates.aspx.

36 On e-fibers, see Gullingsrud, Annie, Fashion Fibers: Designing for Sustainability (New York, 2017)Google Scholar; and “Materials and Technologies,” Patagonia website, accessed 21 Feb. 2019, http://www.patagonia.com/materials-tech.html. On the rise of the electric car, see Tillemann, Levi, The Great Race: The Global Quest for the Car of the Future (New York, 2016)Google Scholar.

37 The biotech panel urged earlier consultation about product development in 2007: see Biotechnology Advisory Panel: Third Report November 2007 (Keystone, CO, 2007), 13, http://www.dupont.com/content/dam/dupont/corporate/our-approach/science/documents/BiotechPanelReport_2007.pdf. In addition to Genencor, DuPont worked with Tate & Lyle on Sorona, with BP on biobutanol, and with Archer Daniels Midland on a new plastic for bottles.

38 In 2007, DuPont's biotech panel recommended “taking a closer look at total product life cycles and footprints.” Biotechnology Advisory Panel: Third Report, 15.

39 For DuPont's worries about its image during this period, see Ndiaye, Nylon and Bombs, 224–26. The industry's poor reputation is summarized in King and Lenox, “Industry Self-Regulation,” 699.

40 On Superfund, see Philip Shabecoff, “DuPont Official Urges Compromise on Cleanup Fund,” New York Times, 20 Nov. 1980; Philip Shabecoff, “Compromise on ‘Superfund,’” New York Times, 24 Nov. 1980; and Kinnane, DuPont, 214. On CFCs, see Holusha, “Ed Woolard Walks Du Pont's Tightrope”; and Parson, Protecting the Ozone Layer, 156–58.

41 For an insider's view of the challenge of establishing a green reputation, see Harrison, Going Green.

42 Doyle, Hold the Applause, 1–2, 5–10; Greer, Jed and Bruno, Kenny, Greenwash: The Reality behind Corporate Environmentalism (Penang, Malaysia, 1996), 81–82Google Scholar; Karliner, Joshua, The Corporate Planet: Ecology and Politics in the Age of Globalization (San Francisco, 1997), 171Google Scholar.

43 Jones, Profits and Sustainability, 290–92; “Environmentalists Assess Corporate Pollution Records,” New York Times, 9 Dec. 1991; Laszlo and Zhexembayeva, Embedded Sustainability, 10–15; “Public Interest and Shareholder Targets: Council on Economic Priorities Names ‘Worst Polluters’ for 1993 – Companies Are 1994 Targets for Campaign for Cleaner Corporations,” Hank Boerner's Corporate Governance & Accountability Update 1 (Winter 1994): 1–3, http://www.hankboerner.com/library/CorpGovUpdate/CorpGov%20Update%20Winter%201994.pdf. In addition, see Michael E. Kraft, Mark Stephan, and Troy D. Abel, Coming Clean: Information Disclosure and Environmental Performance (Cambridge, MA, 2011).

44 Hoffman, From Heresy to Dogma, 188; “Six Keys to Creating a Winning Environmental Report,” GreenBiz (June 2006), https://www.greenbiz.com/research/report/2006/06/03/six-keys-creating-winning-environmental-report. The quotation is from Shields et al., “Environmental Accounting Case Study,” 125.

45 Sanford, Responsible Business, 19–23; Senge et al., Necessary Revolution, 128; Holliday, “How Working with NGOs Made DuPont a Better Company”; “Biotech Advisory Board,” DuPont website, accessed 21 Feb. 2019, http://www.dupont.com/corporate-functions/our-approach/innovation-excellence/science/science-and-technology/biotechnology/stewardship/biotechnology-advisory-board.html.

46 “DuPont Sustainability Reporting,” DuPont website, accessed 21 Feb. 2019, http://www.dupont.com/corporate-functions/sustainability/sustainability-commitments/performance-reporting/sustainability-reports.html.

47 Esty and Winston, Green to Gold, 18; Johnson, Eric, Sustainability in the Chemical Industry (New York, 2012), 112CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 Johnson, Sustainability, 30–31; Leslie Savan, “Teflon Is Forever,” Mother Jones, May/June 2007, https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2007/05/teflon-forever/; “Despite Clear Dangers, DuPont Kept Using a Toxic Chemical,” New York Times, 12 Jan. 2016; Lerner, “Teflon Toxin”; Rich, “DuPont's Worst Nightmare”; Blake, “Beautiful Parkersburg.”

49 My thinking on this issue owes much to Shapira and Zingales, Is Pollution Value-Maximizing? In addition, see Markowitz, Gerald and Rosner, David, Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution (Berkeley, 2013), 300–1Google Scholar.

50 Though some readers will dispute that our current economy is unsustainable, I am convinced that is true. Many leaders in the sustainable-business community agree. See, for example, Hawken, Paul, The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability (New York, 1994)Google Scholar, xiv; Chouinard, Yvon and Stanley, Vincent, The Responsible Company (Ventura, CA, 2012), 14–15Google Scholar.

51 Doyle, Trespass against Us, xviii; Rebecca Altman, “How the Benzene Tree Polluted the World,” The Atlantic, 4 Oct. 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/10/benzene-tree-organic-compounds/530655/. Patagonia's commitment to sustainability has attracted considerable attention: for a recent analysis, see Geoffrey Jones and Ben Gettinger, “Alternative Paths of Green Entrepreneurship: The Environmental Legacies of the North Face's Doug Tompkins and Patagonia's Yvon Chouinard” (Harvard Business School Working Paper No. 17-034, Cambridge, MA, 2016), 12–14, 17–18, 21–25.

52 Hockerts, Kai and Wustenhagen, Rolf, “Greening Goliaths versus Emerging Davids: Theorizing about the Role of Incumbents and New Entrants in Sustainable Entrepreneurship,” Journal of Business Venturing 25, no. 5 (2010): 486CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 Ross and Amter, Polluters, 150.

54 Gilding, Great Disruption, 153. For the reaction to DuPont's lobbying, see John H. Cushman Jr., “Industries Press Plan for Credits in Emissions Pact,” New York Times, 3 Jan. 1999; Pooley, Climate War, 170.