DuPont's Holliday Wins Courage Award
The World Resources Institute (WRI) has awarded the Courage to Lead Award to DuPont Chair Charles O. Holliday, Jr. for advancing sustainability practices in industry.
“Chad Holliday has shown how an open-minded, visionary leader can take an iconic company powerfully and profitably toward sustainability,” said Jonathan Lash, president of WRI. “In doing so, he has made DuPont an important and admired model.”
“Chad brought his unique perspective to DuPont’s businesses and made the concept of sustainable growth central to our mission as a company,” said DuPont Chief Executive Officer Ellen Kullman. “Chad convincingly made sustainability a valuable business imperative.”
According to WRI, Holliday’s accomplishments include transforming DuPont from a fossil fuels and chemicals company to a science company and delivering sustainable solutions that help others reduce their environmental footprint. Along the way, Holliday
- set innovative market-facing sustainability goals for the company;
- became a pioneering voice for economically sound environmental policy – in particular climate change;
- was chairman of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development; and
- co-wrote an important book on sustainability and business, “Walking the Talk.”
DuPont – one of the first companies to publicly establish environmental goals 19 years ago – has broadened its sustainability commitments beyond internal footprint reduction to include market-driven targets for both revenue and research and development investment. The goals are tied directly to business growth, specifically to the development of safer and environmentally improved new products for key global markets.