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 ambitious and 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 renewable energy to 50% of total electricity usage
  • Increase operational energy efficiency by 20%
  • Reduce waste disposal intensity by 25%

• Product Blueprint Philosophy
  • Implemented Sustainability by Design program across the enterprise, serving as our proactive, foundational process to aid the growth of our “sustainably advantaged products” portfolio
  • Established a baseline for “sustainably advantaged products” and developed a plan for expanding this product portfolio in the future
  • Developed a structured process for measuring and assessing Scope 3 emissions

• Social Imprint Goals and Aspirations for our People
  • Reduce recordable case rate to 0.8 by 2025
  • Reduce ergonomic injuries by implementing two ergonomic interventions per year at each manufacturing site
  • Increase women in management roles to 30% by 2025
  • Increase under-represented 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 annual 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 define a "sustainably advantaged product" that achieves a level of third-party green chemistry, ecolabel and similar recognition or can be shown through data to be more sustainable than what is currently the norm for the industry. 

We believe it’s important to participate in healthy discussions – and create action plans – with input and expertise from those around us. That is why we are actively engaged with many government agencies, industry organizations and non-governmental organizations that value sustainable practices as much as we do:

• American Coating Association™ (ACA)
• British Coatings Federation (BCF)
• Canadian Paints and Coatings Association (CPCA)
• CLEARCorps USA
• ECOLABEL – European Union
• EcoVadis® Business SUstainability Ratings
• EPA SmartWay® Fuel Efficient Transportation Program
• Green Chemistry and Commerce Council (GC3)
• GREENGUARD Certification from UL Environment
• Household & Commercial Products National Association of Home Builders (NAHB®) National Green Building Program®
• NSF International
• PaintCare® Program
• Sustainability Accounting Standards Board® (SASB)
• CDP™
• The Coatings Care® Program
• The U.S. Green Building Council® (USGBC®) LEED® Program
  
  

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 ensure safe workplaces, protect the environment and meet or exceed regulatory requirements. 
  • The principles of S-W Cares include:
    • Safe Employees
    • Healthy Planet
    • Responsible Operations

• Sustainability by Design: Our signature effort to formally incorporate sustainability attributes such as life cycle thinking throughout our innovation and product development process:
  • From initial concept through commercialization, we consider ways to make our products more sustainable and better performing by looking at chemical formulations, product performance, manufacturing processes, health and safety, and packaging, among other areas
  • In the spirit of continuous improvement, this program will enable us to evolve our products and processes to deliver and grow our sustainably advantaged product offering

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 2021, our fleet recorded nearly 82.8 million miles and we continued to see year-over-year improvement in our safety performance. Some of the efforts  taken to achieve improvements in our safety performance include the use of wireless cameras and a new on-board computer  logging device that helps to coach drivers and monitor incidents – both in real time and after the fact. Within the Global Supply Chain division, Company leadership has encouraged the Driver Safety Committee to highlight issues and provide solutions. At least one driver represents each distribution center on the committee. 

The Americas Group (TAG) also continues to benefit from  an increased safety focus, with TAG’s 2021 CMV DOT  Recordable Accident Rate improving over the 2020 rate.

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 is a core value. S-W Cares is the 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 (EHS) 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 ensure safe workplaces, protect the environment and meet or exceed regulatory requirements.


With the launch of the TLC Stay Safe Out There campaign, the Company continues to focus on reducing the number of injuries attributable to Trips, Lifts and Cuts in our stores and facilities across the globe. These types of hazards typically account for 85% of the Company’s employee-reported injuries. The initiative encourages employees to take a personal stake in the safety of their workplace and also brings awareness to the risk of fires and spills at manufacturing locations. With the TLC campaign in place, the Company reduced its recordable case rate (RCR) in one year by the same amount as in the previous three years combined – achieving a company record with a recordable case rate of 1.06 in 2020. In 2021, we improved even greater by achieving a 0.81 recordable case rate. 

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 – The Americas Group (TAG), 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.

As an example – within TAG – the creation of a tactical EHS handbook and companion mobile app personalized for their unique operations in 2020, 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 TAG 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.

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 published our first disclosures that align with the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) framework. View our TCFD disclosures here.