Barron’s specifically noted that Air Products, which has appeared on the Most Sustainable Companies list for three consecutive years, has committed billions of dollars of capital toward the largest renewable hydrogen project in history, which will provide carbon-free hydrogen to the world on a massive scale in 2025.
“Sustainability is at the heart of what we do. Our industrial gases, technologies and applications enable customers around the world to reduce their energy use, lower emissions and increase productivity,” said Seifi Ghasemi, Air Products’ Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. “We are proud to be recognized by Barron’s for our sustainability efforts and solutions but know there is always more work to be done, which is why Air Products is playing a lead role in addressing significant energy and environmental challenges through gasification, carbon capture and hydrogen for mobility solutions around the world.”
One key project designed to address the need for clean energy is NEOM. Last year, Air Products, in conjunction with ACWA Power and NEOM, signed an agreement for a $5 billion world-scale green hydrogen-based ammonia production facility powered by renewable energy. The project, which will be equally owned by the three partners, will be located in NEOM―a new model for sustainable living to be located in the northwest corner of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia―and will produce green ammonia for export to global markets. Air Products will be the exclusive off-taker of the green ammonia and will invest an additional $2 billion downstream, bringing the Company’s total investment to $3.7 billion. Air Products will transport the green ammonia around the world to be dissociated to produce green hydrogen for transportation and other markets.
For its fourth annual list of the most sustainable companies, Barron’s worked with Calvert Research & Management, a top sustainable investing firm, which analyzed the 1,000 largest United States (U.S.) publicly held companies, measured by market capitalization. Each company was rated in five key stakeholder categories: shareholders, employees, customers, community and planet.
To further its sustainability efforts, Air Products also announced a new sustainability goal in 2020 to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) intensity (kg CO2/MM BTU) by one-third by the year 2030 from a 2015 baseline.
In addition, Air Products also announced a new step toward its goal of being the most diverse industrial gas company in the world. To build on its culture of diversity, inclusion and belonging, Air Products has set goals to further increase the percentage of females and U.S. minorities in professional and managerial roles. By 2025, Air Products aims to achieve at least 28 percent female representation in the professional and managerial population globally and at least 20 percent minority representation in the same population in the United States. These measures are increases from 25 and 17 percent representation (2020 baseline), respectively.
The Barron’s recognition is the latest for Air Products, which was also recently included in the S&P Global 2020 Sustainability Yearbook and the Corporate Knights’ Clean 200 listing for the third year in a row. The Clean 200 was established in 2016 and ranks the largest publicly listed companies by their clean energy reviews. Air Products also has been named to the Wall Street Journal’s 100 Most Sustainably Managed Companies list, which assessed more than 5,500 publicly traded businesses based on sustainability metrics in areas such as business model and innovation, external social and product issues, employee and workplace issues and the environment. In addition, in November, Air Products was named to the Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index (DJSI) for the 11th consecutive year. The 2020/2021 DJSI recognition ranks Air Products among the top 20 percent of North American companies in its industry group for corporate sustainability performance.
Additional information on Air Products’ commitment to sustainability is available on its Sustainability website.