ATLANTA, July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Home Depot®, the world's largest home improvement retailer, today announced companywide sustainability progress in its 2020 Responsibility Report, which outlines the company's 2019 progress on its corporate responsibility strategic pillars: focus on people, operate sustainably and strengthen communities. The report also introduces several new goals and provides an update on the company's recent response to COVID-19 and social equality issues.
New goals include a commitment to produce and procure energy from 335 megawatts of renewable and alternative energy projects by 2025 – equivalent to the amount of energy it takes to power more than 90,000 homes. Additionally, the company pledged to eliminate expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) film from its private brand packaging by 2023.
As part of its existing pledge to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 50 percent by 2035, The Home Depot reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 10 percent in 2019, driven primarily by energy reductions and supply chain efficiencies. The company reduced its electricity consumption in U.S. stores by 383 million kilowatt hours, tripling its 2018 reduction while at the same time adding three new U.S. stores to its footprint.
"We believe our commitment to continuing progress on environmental, social and governance issues has made our company stronger, had a lasting positive impact on the environment, deepened our relationships with associates and customers, and created long-term shareholder value," said Craig Menear, chairman, CEO and president of The Home Depot. "I want to thank our associates and suppliers for the significant progress we made last year and look forward to making meaningful progress in the future."
The Home Depot's Corporate Responsibility strategy is centered on three key pillars: focusing on people, operating sustainably, strengthening communities.
Focus on People
Operating Sustainably
Strengthening Communities
New to the report this year is the inclusion of disclosures aligned with the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) frameworks. The company also continues to apply the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Sustainability Reporting Standards as an identification and cross reference tool, which it has done for the last 5 years, and highlights 10 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals that align within The Home Depot's sphere of influence. In addition to these disclosure frameworks, the report includes charts on materiality touchpoints, progress on stated goals and an ESG transparency chart that highlights The Home Depot's key environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics from 2017 through 2019.
For more information on The Home Depot's commitment to environmental, social, and governance issues, please view the 2020 Responsibility Report on The Home Depot's corporate newsroom, Built from Scratch.
About The Home Depot
The Home Depot is the world's largest home improvement specialty retailer, with 2,293 retail stores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, 10 Canadian provinces and Mexico. In fiscal 2019, The Home Depot had sales of $110.2 billion and earnings of $11.2 billion. The company employs more than 400,000 associates. The Home Depot's stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: HD) and is included in the Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor's 500 index.
Certain statements contained herein constitute "forward-looking statements" as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements may relate to, among other things, our goals, commitments and programs and projections of future results; the impact on our business, operations and financial results of the COVID-19 pandemic; our business plans, strategies, initiatives and objectives and their expected execution and impact; management of relationships with our associates, suppliers and vendors; and our assumptions and expectations regarding any of the foregoing. Forward-looking statements are based on currently available information and our current assumptions, expectations and projections about future events. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to future events, risks and uncertainties – many of which are beyond our control, dependent on the actions of third parties, or currently unknown to us – as well as potentially inaccurate assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations and projections. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those described in Item 1A, "Risk Factors," and elsewhere in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for our fiscal year ended February 2, 2020 and in our subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q.
Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and we do not undertake to update these statements other than as required by law. You are advised, however, to review any further disclosures we make on related subjects in our periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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SOURCE The Home Depot