Sustainability is not new to Sherwin-Williams – it is reflected in our core values and embedded in our culture and business practices. We maintain an enterprise-wide and science-based approach to continuous improvement and are committed to building long-term, sustainable shareholder value.

The Sherwin-Williams Company culture is built on trust, respect, execution and belonging, which guide our commitment to take care of our customers, respect our employees and the environment, create value for our shareholders and support the communities in which we live and work.

Sustainability is ingrained in our values and our way of doing business. We embrace an enterprise-wide approach, integrating sustainability into our worldwide business operations and embedding it in our product innovation and product delivery processes. As we seek to drive above-market growth and returns, we see sustainability as one of our key enterprise priorities and a crucial element in creating value for our customers, employees, shareholders and the communities we serve.

We have the commitment, strategy, goals and programs in place to drive progress in our top tier focus areas of: Climate and Carbon and Environmental Remediation (within our Environmental Stewardship pillar); Product Stewardship and Circularity (within our Product Blueprint pillar); and Occupational Health and Safety and Talent Acquisition and Employee Engagement (within our Social Imprint pillar). 

Our meaningful goals address global issues of critical importance, including doing our part to address climate change by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, increasing use of renewable energy, minimizing our waste and accelerating development of products with sustainability attributes. We are also building additional momentum through our vision of zero mindset within occupational health and safety, our culture of belonging and our engagement with communities where we operate around the world.

• 2030 Environmental Footprint Reduction Goals
  • Reduce absolute Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 30%
    
  • Increase energy from renewable sources to 50% of total electricity usage
  • Reduce waste disposal intensity by 25%
• Environmental Footprint 2024 Highlights
  • Increased renewable energy to ~30% and engaged new contracts that will lead to further increases in the future
  • Invested in energy-saving projects, including variable frequency drives, equipment upgrades, reduced fleet idle time and more
  • Assessed decarbonization commitments of largest suppliers, with 60% having made commitments to reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions

• Product Blueprint 2024 Highlights
  • Earned Green Builder® 2024 Sustainable Products of the Year award for Scuff Tuff®   Interior Waterbased Enamel paint
  • Put our Uniflex® roof coatings to the test, extending the life of a demonstration roof, improving the facility’s energy efficiency and reducing waste to landfill
  • Achieved a third-party verified Health Product Declaration for ProMar® HP paint
  • Generated 25% approximate revenue from products with third party sustainability-related certifications or declarations

• Social Imprint 2024 Highlights
  • Honored 129 fleet drivers who have covered 1 million miles or more without an accident, representing 14% of our fleet
  • Enhanced our higher education benefits for U.S. employees through Guild Education, covering tuition for bachelor's degrees, associate degrees and certificates for in-demand fields through the program
  • Grew employee-led communities to more than 400 chapters worldwide to foster performance, employee engagement and innovation
  • 4400+ sites recordable-free in 2024

Sherwin-Williams participates in various regional and industry trade associations and pursues third-party verifications to help validate claims about product attributes. Across our portfolio, our products have earned certifications from the following organizations and support green building programs, including: American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE®), Collaborative for High Performance Schools® (CHPS), Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute®, EU Ecolabel, Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC®), Green Globes®, GEI and UL GREENGUARD, International Green Construction Code®, LEED®,  Nordic Swan Ecolabel, The Master Painters Institute (MPI) X-Green, USDA BioPreferred® Program and WELL Building Standard®. This active involvement demonstrates our commitment to collaborate and share ideas within the industry and other groups about the connection points between public policy and our focus on technical innovation. This engagement also informs the development of our strategies for addressing current and emerging trends, risks and opportunities and complying with applicable laws, regulations and requirements relating to the environment and climate change.

We are communicating our approach to sustainability and incorporating sustainability into our earliest design processes through the following internal programs:

• S-W Cares: Enterprise-Wide EHS Excellence
  • Company’s enterprise-wide initiative to communicate our approach to occupational health and safety and serves as a roadmap for achieving environmental, health and safety excellence across the Company. It provides a leadership governance structure built around a common language that is supported by tools to continuously track and measure our efforts to enable safe workplaces, protect the environment and meet or exceed regulatory requirements. Our S-W Cares initiative is backed by formal systems and programs – like the TLC Stay Safe Out There initiative – to encourage employees to proactively “find, own, fix and report” workplace hazards before they lead to an incident.
  • The principles of S-W Cares include:
    • Safe Employees
    • Healthy Planet
    • Responsible Operations

• Sustainability by Design
  
  • Our Sustainability by Design program is a signature effort to intentionally consider sustainability attributes and life cycle thinking during the product development process. This means we consider a product’s potential environmental impacts during creation, use and disposal. We also are working to advance our products’ many beneficial applications, such as extending the life of assets, and sharing these benefits with consumers so they can make better-informed choices.

Each year, Sherwin-Williams drivers traverse millions of miles to bring paint and coatings from manufacturing and distribution centers to our stores and, ultimately, to customers. Within our Global Supply Chain (GSC) group, company leadership is championing driver safety and has encouraged the Driver Safety Committee to highlight issues and provide solutions, with at least one driver representing each distribution center on the committee.

Drivers of tractor-trailers, delivery vehicles and passenger vehicles in our fleet must manage risks related to traffic and road safety. Many drivers are also responsible for loading and unloading deliveries from our vehicles. Therefore, our fleet safety programs focus not only on safe driving, but also ergonomic improvements. In 2024, NCSU researchers conducted ride-alongs with delivery drivers who frequent customer job sites to identify possible ways to reduce risks of material handling injuries among this group.

With a focus on other areas that will make the greatest difference, we introduced new comprehensive safety training for recently hired fleet drivers. Covering elements of both onboarding and day-to-day compliance, this training will help drivers start their Sherwin-Williams careers on the right path.

Sherwin-Williams recognizes our most accomplished Contract Transportation System (CTS) drivers who have covered 1 million miles or more without an accident. This milestone, which 129 drivers have achieved in 2024, typically takes between 10 and 12 years. In 2024, we held an in-person Million-Mile Banquet that also recognized 36 drivers who have covered 1.6 million miles or more without an accident.

We continue to adopt sophisticated fleet technology and training solutions designed to improve our fleet safety performance. The use of onboard cameras and tools in our fleet helps give drivers better visibility and navigational capabilities while operating our vehicles. These tools also help track and record driver behavior and performance for real-time alerts and feedback. This information can then be used to facilitate coaching opportunities to improve performance. The Driver Safety Committee is encouraged to identify the issues and challenges our drivers experience on the job and provide solutions. At least one driver represents each distribution center on the committee to incorporate driver feedback into fleet planning and strategy sessions.

The S-W Cares program, the TLC Stay Safe Out There campaign, our EHS Management System, fleet safety efforts and increased collaboration between divisions are instrumental in driving continuous improvement in safety performance at Sherwin-Williams.

The safety of our employees and customers isn’t just a priority – it’s a foundational value recognized at the highest levels of our organization and at every facility in which we operate. S-W Cares is our safety culture initiative that serves as a roadmap for achieving health and safety excellence across the Company. We continue to allocate resources, develop policies and institute governance measures in alignment with our S-W Cares program to drive progress toward delivery of our commitments.

Each letter in “cares” defines an expectation for our workforce to sustain and improve our safety performance. To embody S-W Cares, our leaders and teams must:

Champion – Lead by example

Act – Find, own, fix and report issues

Recognize – Reward individual and team efforts

Empower – Allow people the time to support a safe and healthy work environment

Share – Share successes and best practices

Our S-W Cares initiative is backed by formal systems and programs – like the TLC Stay Safe Out There initiative – to encourage employees to proactively “find, own, fix and report” workplace hazards before they lead to an incident.  Each employee is empowered to routinely review their workspace to identify and report potential safety hazards and to continually coach peers on behaviors so that corrective action can be taken as needed. We believe that safety is something that employees commit to every day, which is why we have continued to prioritize messaging and actions that reinforce our culture of safety across the organization. Additionally, every manufacturing site has a safety tactical plan and monthly training requirements that are specific to its operations. We monitor performance at all our facilities, and routinely review this information locally and at the highest levels of our organization to facilitate continuous improvement. We believe that access to safety data is critical to our operations, which is why we continue to invest in solutions that offer us a greater understanding of our performance and help us identify opportunities to improve.

In 2023, we launched our new data management system to further enhance our reporting and oversight capabilities. This program enhances our ability to find, own, fix and report health and safety issues. Within the software, there are dedicated learning and training modules and other easily accessible resources to help drive continued learning while promoting the safety and well-being of our employees.

Sherwin-Williams continuously strives to reduce waste in our operations. Our waste reduction efforts focus on two primary levers: 1) reducing the amount of waste that we generate, and 2) increasing our reuse and recycling. Every Sherwin-Williams manufacturing facility has waste reduction goals and associated projects and programs to meet those goals. Continuous improvement processes have been implemented to address quality control, reduce distressed batches and manage raw materials and finished product inventory, thereby eliminating the waste before it is generated.

Other waste reduction efforts include: the reuse and recycling of cleaning solvents; reworking paint into new batches; and recycling cardboard, paper, plastic and metal. Materials that become waste are managed in accordance with applicable regulations and corporate guidelines. Another key component of our product stewardship strategy is our participation in the PaintCare® paint recycling program, which we have been involved with since its inception in 2009. The nonprofit program is managed by the American Coatings Association (ACA) to recycle and properly manage post-consumer paint. In 2024, 695 Sherwin-Williams stores currently participate in these paint recycling efforts, serving as retail drop-off sites for customers and local communities. The PaintCare® program has kept more than 70 million gallons of paint out of residential waste streams since 2009.

In support of our EHS Policy and commitment to EHS, we have implemented a Global Environment, Health and Safety Management System (EHSMS) which ensures that our sites have a common roadmap for the best practices that help us to work toward an accident- and incident-free workplace and more sustainable organization. This management system articulates the processes that are in place to maintain a safe and healthy environment, and the role each employee plays in ensuring these are executed consistently.

As a global business, our EHSMS helps ensure we are all working from the same playbook, abiding by the same standards and aiming to improve our workplaces in the same way, reinforcing that we are a company that cares for our people and our environment. All operating sites are required to implement and maintain the systems, tools and processes needed to conform to the expectations described in this framework.

Our EHSMS is strongly aligned with third-party certifications, such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14001 voluntary standard for environmental management systems, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP), the ISO 45001 voluntary standard for OHS management systems and other best practices. In addition to our EHSMS, 35 percent of our manufacturing and distribution facilities are ISO 14001-certified, and 36 percent have achieved OSHA’s VPP Star rating or ISO 45001 certified.

The EHSMS has five essential components: Culture, Planning, Implementation and Operations, Verifications and Process Accountability, and Action Management and Continuous Improvement. Each component must be understood, implemented and upheld by everyone to support long-term EHS excellence across our organization.

• Along with the publication of our annual Sustainability Report, we have historically reported to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards and Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) framework. In 2022, we began publishing disclosures that align with the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) framework. In 2024, we published our first disclosure for the Taskforce on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures (TNFD). View the latest documents here.