Our
Environmental
Sustainability

Our long-standing commitment to the environment began in 1970 with the formation of our Office of Environment. Today we are accelerating our progress by delivering on our commitments to improve the environmental efficiency of plants and products while making a positive impact on people and the planet. We continue to take action in addressing climate change and the current, unsustainable rate of resource depletion, and remain steadfast in embedding environmental commitments in our business practices everywhere we operate. Whirlpool firmly believes sustainability is an avenue for continued growth.

Three elements form the core of our environmental sustainability priorities: sustainable plants, sustainable products, and sustainable practices.

Our Goals advance our
commitment to:

  • 50% emission reduction from our plants by 2030 vs. 2016 baseline

  • 20% emission reduction from our products in use by 2030 vs. 2016 baseline

  • Zero Waste to Landfill in all manufacturing sites by 2022

In 2019 we committed to:

  • The United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) and reinforced our commitment to the Ten Principles in the areas of human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption.

  • Fully deliver on emissions reduction goals that meet or exceed the Paris Agreement.

  • The Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi), which approved our Greenhouse Gas emissions targets.

Sustainable Plants

Whirlpool Corporation is one of the largest Fortune 500 consumers of on-site wind energy in the United States and we are investing in renewable energy solutions in countries such as India and China. In addition, since 2015 we have reduced approximately 12% of the energy intensity in our plants.

World Class Manufacturing (WCM) methodology and principles are embedded across all 36 manufacturing plants in 13 countries as of 2019, creating operational excellence across a uniform global platform and enabling significant improvements in our Safety, Delivery, Quality, and Cost metrics. WCM integrates both sustainability and accountability into the daily operations of our plants and people across all locations. All Whirlpool employees in manufacturing—from leadership to the people on the shop floor—are responsible for identifying and implementing ways to increase resource efficiency through initiatives such as Zero Waste to Landfill and energy- and water-efficiency projects.

Significantly Reducing Emissions

Bar Chart showing Whirlpool Scopes 1 + 2 Plant Emissions from 2016 through 2019 and the goal for 2030.

Whirlpool Corporation is committed to the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi). In 2019, SBTi approved our Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions science-based targets that meet and exceed the Paris Agreement goals.

While Improving the Efficiency of Our Products

Bar Chart showing Whirlpool Scope 3 Products in Use from 2016 through 2019 and the goal for 2030.

In order to improve transparency and robustness, we have an internally developed Global Emissions Management System to determine our global footprint in all regions and all models, tying over 12 unique systems into one global reporting capability. This system is able to track from 2016 data in a systematic way, providing input to our business strategy to lower our product portfolio’s carbon footprint.

Greater than 96% of our waste goes to recycling
Less than <3.5% of our waste goes to landfill
Less than 0.5% of our waste goes to incineration
Achieved zero waste to landfill in 8 of our plants

Sustainable Products

Our consumers deserve products that are designed using materials with the lowest environmental impact possible, are resource-efficient and can be recycled at the end of life. Our new product emission reduction goals will build upon our success of over 50% reductions since 2005, driving toward over 60% by 2030. Correspondingly, we developed “Design for Environment” tools to deliver energy- and water-efficient products with more recycled content and we have committed to use recycled content on major plastic components in our European products by 2025, as well as use a majority of recycled-content steel. This year we also launched a new full materials transparency system to offer insight into substances of concern.

Sustainable Practices

Sustainability-minded plants and efficient products are not enough to create a sustainable business. Therefore, our commitment is embedded in our day-to-day business practices everywhere we operate, including how we design, source, manufacture, distribute, market, and manage end-of-life for our products. Our approach to improving connections within our key internal teams was restructured in 2019, assigning senior leader owners for each of our key sustainability initiatives and further strengthening our commitment to sustainability, using new information technology tools to better track and monitor key sustainability metrics.

Scopes 1 + 2 Plant Emissions (metric tons of CO2eq in thousands)
2016 833
2017 809
2018 753
2019 684
2030 Goal 416
Scopes 3 Products in Use (lifetime metric tons of CO2eq in millions)
2016 72.3
2017 71.7
2018 66.2
2019 67.6
2030 Goal 57.8