Honeywell's Anne Madden shares how Futureshapers drive progress

Honeywell's Senior Vice President & General Counsel, Anne Madden joins Honeywell's Chief Marketing Officer, Laura Kelleher, on the Future Is... podcast to discuss Honeywell's Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) progress, and how Futureshapers are innovating to drive transformation.

"Environmental, social and governance are all critical components of a vibrant, healthy and importantly, sustainable approach to running our company," explains Anne.

Setting out sustainability goals

Discussing the company's ESG report, Anne says: "The contents of the report are really the embodiment of our wall-to-wall ESG program. It sets out our ESG priorities and our sustainability goals. It showcases the extensive work we've done both now and in the future. But my favorite part of it is it's a huge showcase for the sustainability products and solutions that Honeywell creates for our customers."

"For Honeywell, corporate social responsibility is an important focus for us," shares Anne. "As a leader in our communities, and as a place where our Futureshapers can really come to work every day and feel proud to work. For us, ESG has a big focus on sustainability, and that is sustainability in the sense of our sustainable innovation, but also creating a company that can deliver for our shareholders, and our employees and our communities sustainable growth and profitable performance, strong financial performance."

Anne shares that one of Honeywell's goals around energy efficiency involves reaching carbon neutrality by 2035 in its facilities and operations.

"Our carbon-neutral commitment was a pledge we made in 2022, and it is to achieve carbon neutrality by 2035, in our facilities and our operations. And that's what's known as our scope one and two emissions. And so, we are on track to meet or exceed that commitment, but we also have a number of interim goals that we've established along the way. So we're not waiting for a big bang in 2035 we are chipping away and chipping away all along the way with interim commitments, and I'm happy to report that we're meeting or exceeding those interim goals as well."

When asked how the Honeywell Futureshapers pivotal to helping the company meet its ESG goals, Anne says that there is so much Futureshapers can do to help.

"I would say number one would be, let's help our customers achieve their goals. Let's listen to our customers. What are their ESG challenges? When we listen to our customers and we co-innovate with our customers. That's the single best way to help our customers grow and it in turn helps Honeywell grow," explains Anne. "But there are so many other ways, such as being involved in our inclusion and diversity efforts is a great way for our Futureshapers to help us further our ESG goals. And there are so many ways to do that. We have numerous employee resource groups that have today over 12,000 Futureshapers as members, but those employee resource groups are open to the entire company. And so I would love all 100,000 employees, Futureshapers to belong to our employee resource groups. Allies are very welcome, so please do join."

A culture and spirit of volunteerism

Anne also discusses volunteerism. "We have a great culture and spirit of volunteerism at Honeywell, and that's a great way to get involved to help us with our ESG goals," she says. "We observe a volunteer month every year and our Futureshapers pack thousands of pounds of food to feed hungry families. We mentor, we plant urban areas, we donate clothing to those who need, and so much more. And so that spirit of volunteerism is really a great way to pitch in and help us achieve our ESG goals."

An industry expert

Anne is responsible for managing legal affairs, Government Relations, health, safety, environment, product stewardship, sustainability/ESG and global security. Anne is also responsible for Honeywell’s global M&A and venture capital efforts. Prior to taking this role in 2017, Anne was Vice President, Corporate Development and Global Head of M&A, leading acquisition and divestiture activities for 16 years.