Everyone Takes the Field: How 3M Encourages Employee Involvement in Promoting Sustainable Development

Abstract

As with quality and innovation, sustainability must be supported by all employees. Sustainability requires a multi-level, multidisciplinary approach to the development of new products, reviews of existing products and processes, and efforts to help customers address environmental issues. 3M's Environmental, Health and Safety Management System – which follows principles of Life Cycle Management – is the company's primary tool for promoting sustainability. Leadership, communications and adequate resources are also needed if sustainability is to become rooted in a company's activities. 3M's Pollution Prevention Pays (3P) program, founded in 1975, provides an example of how these factors support sustainability. 3P, which seeks to eliminate pollution before it occurs, has spawned more than 4,750 projects worldwide, all of them proposed by employees. These projects have prevented the generation of 1.7 billion pounds of pollution and reduced costs by $850 million in the first year of implementation. 3P works because it encourages employees to use their first-hand knowledge of products and processes and then recognizes their efforts.