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Field assessment Transformation project.
Feature stories Who we are How we work What we create About report 174 3M 2021 Sustainability Report | #improvinglives
Looking forward.
We recognize the supply chains of many materials involve both risks and opportunities. By collaborating with suppliers and advisors in this area, we are continuing to improve our supply chain management systems: • 3M is committed to utilizing third-party resources to conduct more assessments in higher-risk areas of the world.
• 3M is publishing our Responsible Minerals Sourcing Policy in 11 languages to support our global supply base.
• We are refreshing the SRC to align with the RBA 7.0 code, effective in January 2021.
• We will increase efforts with providers of pulp and paper to evaluate and improve their understanding and conformance with 3M’s environmental and social expectations. We are investing in transformation projects that will enhance the global pulp and paper supply chain.
• We are evaluating our portfolio of higher-risk renewable materials.
• We are expanding our due-diligence efforts for higher-risk materials (e.g., mica) to further mitigate risk to our business and advance responsible supply chains.
• 3M is committed to improving value chain equity by increasing the identification and inclusion of small business and diverse suppliers. We are providing relevance to our customers and stakeholders through a diverse supplier development and mentoring program at the business group level.
• 3M plans to conduct sustainable supplier initiatives in 2021. A planned 2020 event was postponed due to pandemic-related concerns.
In 2021, the EU Conflict Minerals Regulation will go into effect and will require companies to take a wider view of their sourcing practices. Members of our European Government Affairs Team have been closely aligned with industry and government organizations to understand the scope, impacts, and timing of the new European regulation. 3M is not affected currently by the regulation. The 3M team will continue to proactively assess potential applicability, so 3M can be prepared to implement the new rule in the future.
Feature stories Who we are How we work What we create About report 175 3M 2021 Sustainability Report | #improvinglives
Introduction 177.
Our customers 178.
Innovation management 184.
Our products 194.
Feature stories Who we are How we work What we create About report 176 3M 2021 Sustainability Report | #improvinglives
What we create.
For over 110 years, we have been dedicated to science and exploration.
Using our 51 Technology Platforms and our collaborative culture, our people apply their talent to combine our technologies across businesses, creating unique solutions for our customers and for society.
Everything we create is shaped by a culture that uses science to solve the world’s problems. Since 2019, every new product entering the new product commercialization process has incorporated a Sustainability Value Commitment that demonstrates how it drives impact for the greater good.
R&D: collaboration at its best.
Scientists in our central laboratory are free to focus on pure research in search of unscripted, unexpected opportunities for breakthroughs. Our unique 15% Culture allows them the freedom to follow their instincts. At the same time, our Tech Forum is a key enabler of collaboration.
This self-directed, self-organized group unites 10,000-plus 3M scientists and engineers who work together to solve problems across oceans and continents, regardless of which business they support.
3M development teams within each of our business groups draw upon our core technologies to create products for targeted industries and geographies.
We continue to expand beyond our own operations and focus on the intersection of our Sustainability Goals and the needs of our customers and communities. We collaborate with our customers to help solve their problems through science. While we recognize the importance of what we do in our own businesses and will continue to innovate there, we know we can make a greater impact when we collaborate with others — customers, governments, NGOs, and more — to understand and overcome the global challenges we face. Together, everyone achieves more.
Feature stories Who we are How we work What we create About report 177 3M 2021 Sustainability Report | #improvinglives
Our customers.
Working together for innovation and growth Our commitment.
Whether it’s technology, manufacturing, global capabilities, or our brand, we are committed to connecting our fundamental strengths to create value for our customers. We engage them and delve into their processes, their problems, and their promises to their customers. We bring our technology to them, along with a deep domain of expertise, and we deepen it further by working side by side with them.
Throughout the process, we not only meet their expressed needs — we are often able to identify and address unarticulated needs. In both cases, we create solutions for them and, at the same time, innovative growth platforms for 3M.
Additional details can be found in the Innovation management section.
R&D: collaboration at its best.
Scientists in our central laboratory are free to focus on pure research in search of unscripted, unexpected opportunities for breakthroughs. Our unique 15% Culture gives them the freedom to follow their instincts. At the same time, our Tech Forum is a key enabler of collaboration.
Creating competitive advantages for customers and for 3M.
At 3M, many of our products are either specified (designed for the customer) or regulated (meeting specific performance and other requirements). We also work through multiple commerce channels, including distribution, direct, retail, and, increasingly, e-commerce. In every channel, we maintain a customer-first focus, focusing on being in a position to deliver value when, where, and how they want it.
Building sustainability into all new products.
Since 2019, we require 100% of our products entering the new product commercialization process to include a Sustainability Value Commitment (SVC) that demonstrates how it drives impact for the greater good.
By embedding sustainability into our R&D process, our brands, and the mindset of our customers and suppliers, we’re able to continue to advance our commitment to improving our business, our planet, and every life.
Additional details can be found in the Innovation management section.
Science for Community goal.
Provide training to five million people globally on worker and patient safety.
1.66M hours toward goal of 5M hours.
We will continue to support empowerment and enrichment for global health and safety issues through our commitment to improve the health and safety of people worldwide. To measure progress against this goal, we will track the number of training experiences delivered by our Health Care and Personal Safety Academies.
2025 goal 2015.
Feature stories Who we are How we work What we create About report 178 3M 2021 Sustainability Report | #improvinglives
Our actions.
Four strategic priorities deliver value for our customers: portfolio management, transformation, innovation, and people and culture.
In all, we work to understand our customers’ business models, what they have promised their customers, what our role is in the value chain, and how we can help them deliver on their promises. It is our Vision to advance every company, enhance every home, and improve every life.
Portfolio management.
The ongoing review and reshaping of our portfolio is critical to maximizing value for our customers and shareholders. We have taken significant actions over the last several years, including realigning from 40 businesses to 23 and completing several acquisitions and divestitures. Actively managing our portfolio keeps us relevant and is a key way we prioritize businesses in order to meet the rapidly evolving needs of our customers and the marketplace.
In 2020, we continued advancing the 3M model to drive long-term growth and productivity by focusing on new growth opportunities, including: • Investing in areas with strong demand aligned with global trends and advantaged by our science and innovation • Using a digital-first approach to create growth opportunities • Increasing our focus on personal safety, home improvement and cleanliness, semiconductors, auto electrification, and biopharma filtration.
Agility in action and the global pandemic response.
As COVID-19 spread throughout the world, we focused on the safety of our employees and the public, including health care workers and first responders. We also maintained a steady focus on our customers — as they worked through challenges caused by the pandemic. Throughout 2020, we: • Ramped up production and delivery of personal protective equipment (PPE) for use by health care workers, first responders, and essential workers.
• Collaborated with companies to develop PPE and other tools being used in the fight against COVID-19. See our feature story, COVID-19: a catalyst for unprecedented collaboration, for more information.
• Developed new products to create value for our customers in response to COVID-19. See our feature story, COVID-19 innovations — Agility in action, for more information.
• Fought fraud, price gouging, and counterfeit activity by bad actors seeking to take advantage of the unprecedented demand for 3M products.
3M was recognized as “Supplier of the Year” by Supply Chain Dive because of our leadership and supply chain risk management, which allowed us to produce and distribute supplies during a time of unprecedented demand. Shifting our supply chain to help meet the demand for PPE, we ramped up global production of N95 respirators to 2 billion respirators by the end of 2020. Accelerated respirator production was possible because we took measures well before the outbreak of COVID-19 to help the company handle unexpected increases in product demand, including the addition of assembly lines that were designed to stay dormant until needed. During the pandemic, we also worked with partners to get real-time data to provide a clearer picture of the supplies our partners had in stock for better alignment with customer demand.
Learn more about how 3M is helping the world respond to COVID-19.
It is our Vision to advance every company, enhance every home, and improve every life.
Feature stories Who we are How we work What we create About report 179 3M 2021 Sustainability Report | #improvinglives
Customer-inspired innovation.
We have a model in place for customer engagement that uses our current product offerings and development opportunities. Innovation at 3M truly comes from the confluence of customer and market insights, technology, and our culture of collaboration and entrepreneurship. Building trust and credibility with our customers helps drive growth. We take the time to get to know them, learn how they live and work, and understand what we can do to improve their businesses and lives. We build relationships with our customers by demonstrating value, and our scientists work directly with customers to solve their unique challenges. Our most successful products are infused with strategic customer insights throughout the entire product development process.
3M is helping our customers in the fight against the pandemic from multiple angles, including working alongside biopharmaceutical companies as they develop and manufacture protein-based vaccines and therapeutics. Read Harvesting proteins to find a vaccine for COVID-19 for insight on how 3M technology is being used to develop vaccines and therapeutics.
“When we visit our customers, we get a sense for how our purification products are a part of something that helps improve and save lives,” says Jonathan Hester, Ph.D., research scientist with 3M Biopharmaceutical Purification. “In a lot of ways, COVID-19 helps us all understand the experiences of people threatened with life-changing diseases. In this case, every one of us is waiting for that vaccine. But there are always people in that situation — waiting and hoping for a cure or treatment — for cancers and other diseases. Knowing we are working on speeding the development of these treatments motivates everyone in our group. Our biopharmaceutical customers have really difficult problems to solve, and we can apply our 3M science to help them.”
We also provide custom resource webpages to our customers that offer solutions on a variety of topics, including getting back to business and caring for clinicians and their patients during COVID-19. Learn more about 3M innovation for COVID-19 response in the Innovation management section and in our feature story, COVID-19 innovations — Agility in action.
Insights.
Customer Needs.
Technology Domain Expertise.
Customer insights.
Customer-inspired innovation “When we visit our customers, we get a sense for how our purification products are a part of something that helps improve and save lives.”
Jonathan Hester, Ph.D. 3M research scientist Biopharmaceutical Purification Team.
Feature stories Who we are How we work What we create About report 180 3M 2021 Sustainability Report | #improvinglives
Collaborating and creating at home and around the world.
When collaboration results in meaningful innovation — solving real problems — it can be awe-inspiring. To get there, we believe it’s essential to be close to our customers. That’s why 3M has 56 innovation centers across the globe, where our customers can experience firsthand the breadth of 3M technologies and how they can benefit from them.
We also have laboratories and application engineering capabilities in 51 countries, where our scientists work closely with our customers to develop solutions for their specific problems.
Collaboration took on new meaning in 2020. Throughout the year, we worked with many companies and customers to collaborate on products to help in the fight against COVID-19. We also evaluated offers from what eventually totaled more than 1,100 external contacts wanting to help. Learn about some of these collaborations in How we’re helping fight the pandemic and our feature story, COVID-19: A catalyst for unprecedented collaboration.
Following are examples of how we collaborated with our customers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• 3M and Safran Cabin partnered to bring expertise in their fields — science and airplane interiors — to create cleaner cabin interiors to help restore public confidence in air travel. Read more in A partnership aimed at creating safer air travel.
• With patients in long-term care facilities representing a large percentage of overall COVID-19 deaths in the U.S., many providers have had to quickly respond to this unprecedented pandemic.1 Read how 3M was able to help Trilogy find the products it needed to clean and disinfect its facilities in Supply chains disrupted, Trilogy turns to 3M for help.
• 3M streamlined supply chain logistics and dedicated customer service to help supercharge WOODCHUCK USA’s production levels of face shields, allowing for the critical delivery of face shields within days. Read how it was accomplished in Streamlining supply to power a transformative pandemic response.
Some of the problems addressed in our technical centers and labs are connected to regional and local issues. For example, rapid population growth in urban areas is creating challenges related to energy efficiency, clean water, and environmental protection. We use 3M technologies to develop relevant solutions that are unique to specific regions, often collaborating with local customers. See how 3M India addressed a local public safety issue in our feature story, Turning students into change agents for safe roads around schools.
3M Design Centers are located in the United States (at 3M’s headquarters in St. Paul, Minnesota), Italy, Japan, India, and China. The centers provide 3M employees with new ways to incorporate design thinking into graphic and industrial design, user experience, and design research. Bolstered by a global design organization with 175 designers around the globe, 3M’s Design Centers help spark new ways to enhance the brand experience, advance innovation, and create customer-driven solutions that positively impact the world.
Transformation: continuing a critical journey.
In 2020, we made great progress on our transformation journey, which leverages our strengths in technology, manufacturing, global capabilities, and brand to provide a more positive overall experience for our customers. Specific accomplishments include: • Successfully deployed ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems in nearly all manufacturing sites and distribution centers • Simplified, standardized, and redesigned business processes • Advanced streamlined, end-to-end engagement with customers • Created value through new service models.