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Kodak's New Green Goals: More Energy Star, Less Water Use

Kodak today released its latest set of three-year sustainability goals, which include making 100 percent of its eligible products Energy Star-certified and tracking and reducing its global water use.

Kodak today released its fourth set of three-year sustainability goals, which include helping employees incorporate sustainability into their daily work, increasing the number of Energy Star-certified products it sells, and tracking and reducing its global water use.

The new goals follow on Kodak's 2006 Responsible Growth Goals, which expanded the company's focus on its manufacturing footprint to look at broader environmental and social responsibility goals.

As a result of the 2006 goals, Kodak says it has reduced its energy use and greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent since 2006 -- far surpassing its original goal of a 20 percent reduction in the same timeframe. Among its other achievements since the announcement of the 2006 goals, Kodak has also collected 1.5 billion single-use cameras for recycling in the past three years.

The reduction in emissions, preventing the release of 1.1 million metric tons of CO2 in the past seven years, was due in part to the company's -- and the industry's -- broad shift to digital technologies, but Kodak also attributes the reductions to its investment in energy efficient equipment and optimizing its design and manufacturing processes.

As we reported just over a year ago, by early 2008 Kodak had achieved a 28 percent reduction in emissions, so in the past year the company has managed a further 12 percent savings in energy use and GHG emissions.

In that light, the new goals seem eminently achievable: its 2009 Responsible Growth Goals call for an overall energy and emissions reduction of 50 percent over 2002 numbers. The goals also push the company to certify 100 percent of its eligible products for the Energy Star label, increase employee education to help them engage in Kodak's everyday sustainability efforts, and continue its efforts to further reduce occupational injury rates at company facilities.

Kodak is also undertaking a water-efficiency project, the first step of which requires the company to measure its global water use.

Waterfall photo CC-licensed by Flickr user jluster.

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