Month: September 2024

SWORDS, Ireland, September 26, 2024 /3BL/ – Trane Technologies (NYSE:TT), a global climate innovator, is proud to announce that Scott Tew has been named to The Independent’s inaugural Climate 100 List. This prestigious list celebrates individuals and organizations dedicated to advancing positive climate solutions and features changemakers from various fields including science, academia, philanthropy, politics, business, and technology.

Tew serves as Vice President of Sustainability and co-founder of the Center for Energy Efficiency & Sustainability (CEES) at Trane Technologies. CEES integrates sustainable practices into the company’s daily operations, supporting its brands Trane and Thermo King, and is responsible for forward-looking sustainability initiatives.

Under his leadership, Trane Technologies has launched several groundbreaking initiatives, including the company’s comprehensive 2030 Sustainability Commitments, the Gigaton Challenge – the largest customer-facing commitment to combat climate change – and a pledge to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Additionally, Trane Technologies became the first company in its industry to have its near-and long-term emissions reduction targets externally validated by the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi).

“We are incredibly proud of Scott for being recognized on The Independent’s Climate 100 List,” said Dave Regnery, Chairman and CEO of Trane Technologies. “His unwavering commitment to sustainability and his visionary leadership have been instrumental in driving our ambitious climate initiatives. This recognition is a testament to Scott’s dedication and the impactful strides we are making toward a more sustainable future.”

Recently, Tew played a pivotal role in Trane Technologies’ industry-first commitment to reduce embodied carbon by 40% by 2030. This commitment focuses on partnering with suppliers of key materials used in buildings and building equipment, such as steel, aluminum, copper, and refrigerants, and builds on the company’s leadership in sourcing more sustainable solutions like low-carbon steel.

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About Trane Technologies 
Trane Technologies is a global climate innovator. Through our strategic brands Trane® and Thermo King®, and our portfolio of environmentally responsible products and services, we bring efficient and sustainable climate solutions to buildings, homes and transportation. For more on Trane Technologies, visit tranetechnologies.com.

For students, summer is a time for long days, great weather and no school. For those in underserved communities, students may not have the resources to participate in special programs that support their development throughout the summer in key subjects, such as science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). AMD recognizes the importance of continued learning in hopes of curbing the “summer slide” as well as introducing STEM concepts and careers to students, which increases the chance that they will pursue a STEM track in school. That is why this summer, offices around the globe provided a variety of activities such as visiting AMD offices and participating in hackathons to engage students. 

Exploring STEM Careers

Students from The Hidden Genius Project, Visions of Science, South High School and Breakthrough Central Texas visited AMD sites in San Jose, Markham, Boxborough and Austin. Employees, interns and members of Employee Resource Groups, including Advancing Black Leadership Excellence and the AMD Women’s Forum, hosted career panels where AMDers shared their career experiences and advice. Students also participated in hands-on STEM activities with AMD volunteers to spark creativity and problem solving such as building computers, conducting science experiments, constructing towers with limited supplies and assembling and racing solar-powered cars. 

Getting Competitive

In Longmont, AMD welcomed 38 middle and high school students to the 6th annual AMD PYNQ™ Bootcamp, a week-long hackathon led by AMD summer interns. The event provided hands-on learning using AMD Kria™ System-on-Modules technology and PYNQ programming to develop AI use cases under the theme of “Deploying AI in the Real World.” Volunteers in Hyderabad also hosted a mini hackathon for 45 students in grades eight and nine. The students were challenged to create solutions to a real-life problem using breadboards, sensors, Arduino platforms and other supplies. With help from AMDers, they successfully built their innovative models within two to three hours and presented their projects to volunteer judges.

In Taipei, AMD partnered with New Taipei City’s Department of Education to support FIRST Robotics Competition events. At the Poster Competition, 210 students presented STEM projects to AMDers, revealing their creativity. Later, 30 teams participated in the “2024 National High School FIRST Robotics Competition Off-Season Event,” designing robots to collect and shoot foam rings into goals, showcasing their technical skills and teamwork to volunteer judges.

Exploring STEM at Home

AMD volunteers assembled and donated 2,000 STEM kits to six global nonprofits to encourage hands-on STEM learning. The kits offer engaging engineering challenges such as programming robots to learn coding, making light-up wearables to understand how circuits work, and other activities designed to spark interest in engineering and technology

AMD remains deeply committed to fostering STEM education and preparing the next generation of innovators. Not only did 2,500+ students experience STEM activities in a meaningful and inspiring way, but our employees experienced firsthand the positive impact their efforts made in their communities.

For more information on STEM initiatives at AMD, please visit: https://www.amd.com/en/corporate/corporate-responsibility/digital-impact.html

Clorox was named a 2024 Safer Choice Partner of the Year for manufacturing products with ingredients that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency designates as safer for families, pets, workplaces, communities, and the environment. We spoke with Lisa Pankiewicz, our vice president of global stewardship, about how we continue to achieve this recognition through advanced product safety and ingredient transparency.

What does it mean to be an EPA Safer Choice partner, and how does it reflect Clorox’s overall commitment to safer product innovation?

Product stewardship is a direct expression of Clorox’s commitment to do the right thing and ensure consumers know what’s in the products they bring into their homes. This marks Clorox’s seventh year as a Safer Choice partner, building upon 17 years of partnership with the EPA’s Design for the Environment/Safer Choice Product Labeling program since we first participated.

Our certified products, which proudly display the Safer Choice or Design for the Environment labels from the EPA, signal to our consumers that they have met the rigorous human health and environmental standards that these programs stand for. This includes four products in our Clorox EcoClean line and two products in our Clorox Free & Clear line — all of which are formulated to provide superior cleaning performance, not tested on animals and packaged in bottles that can be recycled.

Ingredient transparency and advocacy are critical elements of Clorox’s environmental, social, governance, or ESG, goals embedded in the company’s IGNITE strategy. Representing a key benchmark in this ongoing work, this award supports Clorox’s commitment to enhance consumer confidence in its products through certification programs.

This recognition also builds on Clorox’s longstanding product stewardship efforts, including becoming the first major consumer packaged goods company to voluntarily disclose ingredients in our U.S. retail and professional cleaning, disinfecting and laundry products over a decade ago.

Can you share any specific breakthroughs in ingredient sourcing or formulation that were key to making these products safer for families, pets, workplaces, communities and the environment?

When we formulate and manufacture Clorox products, we keep both our consumers and our planet in mind. Our product safety team is involved at the start of every formulation process across our entire portfolio of brands to encourage the selection of safer ingredients. We also consistently work to develop more efficient, more sustainable solutions for our product packaging that include optimizing the use of resin, recyclable or compostable materials.

To meet growing demand for safer cleaners and disinfectants without sacrificing efficacy, in 2022 we proudly launched our Clorox EcoClean line. The EcoClean disinfecting spray utilizes plant-acid based active ingredient that kills 99.9% of common germs in 2 minutes or less and sanitizes hard surfaces in 15 seconds. That same year we also launched our Clorox Free & Clear line, which was made possible by a breakthrough cleaning formula free of dyes, bleach or ammonia.

In addition to the EPA, what other partnerships or collaborations have been most instrumental in driving ingredient safety and transparency?

The challenge of balancing performance and safety in ingredient innovation isn’t something one company can tackle alone. That’s why we partner with a wide range of external collaborators to contribute learnings and develop scalable solutions to move this work forward.

For example, the CleanGredients database, from GreenBlue, has been critical to our product stewardship efforts, and we encourage the product formulators of all Clorox products, not just those with the certifications, to consult this resource to help them understand the available options for safer chemistries during ingredient selection.

Through our participation in the American Cleaning Institute Sustainability Committee, we’ve contributed to creation of a Material Circularity Index to help members assess progress and status against the ambitious ACI-led industry public goal of eliminating all cleaning product packaging waste by 2040. Through this partnership we also helped establish a Sustainable Concentrates & Refills Initiative to understand consumers motivations and desires with concentrate/refill products and generate greater awareness of what the industry can do to enable adoption of these more sustainable product forms while ensuring consumer safety.

To track our progress toward reducing the chemical footprint of our cleaning products, in 2021 we began participating in the Chemical Footprint Project to ensure we are meaningfully benchmarking our efforts. This partnership has been a game changer for proactively identifying opportunities for further improvement, and we are on track to achieve our 2025 interim goal of improving the Chemical Footprint Project score for our domestic cleaning portfolio by 35%.

As Clorox plans its next steps to advance product stewardship across its portfolio, what emerging trends or technologies in sustainable chemistry are you most excited about?

As proud recipients of the EPA’s Green Chemistry Award, Clorox understands that we all share a responsibility to help prevent pollution by advancing green innovation and the design of more eco-friendly chemicals and materials. Looking to the future, we’re excited by the potential for our industry to drive even greater breakthroughs in green chemistry and circular packaging. Achieving innovations in those areas could enable the development of biodegradable and renewable alternatives. These innovations would serve growing consumer trends and present an exciting opportunity to build a future where products are safer for both people and the planet.

CHARLOTTE, N.C., September 26, 2024 /3BL/ – As Hurricane Helene travels toward the Florida panhandle, Truist Foundation today announced it will donate $500,000 to support relief and recovery efforts in communities impacted by the storm. The funds will be distributed to the American Red Cross and World Central Kitchen for immediate relief efforts as well as Center for Disaster Philanthropy’s Atlantic Hurricane Season Fund for long-term recovery efforts.

“Our hearts go out to our teammates, clients and communities in the path of Hurricane Helene, which is expected to make landfall as the strongest storm yet this hurricane season,” said Lynette Bell, president of Truist Foundation. “The importance of Truist’s purpose to inspire and build better lives and communities is never clearer than when disaster strikes. Truist Foundation is dedicated to ensuring communities have the critical resources needed to prepare, respond and restore as quickly as possible.”

The selected organizations will use their grant funds to identify and deliver the most essential immediate community needs such as access to food, shelter and medical services. A portion of the donation will be focused on medium- and long-term recovery informed by disaster experts in partnership with those in the affected communities. Restoration efforts may address needs such as rebuilding homes, providing mental health, legal and disaster case management services, and other urgent challenges identified as recovery efforts progress.

Additionally, earlier this year, Truist Foundation donated $1 million to the American Red Cross Annual Disaster Giving Program, designed to deploy assistance quickly to communities impacted by events such as Hurricane Helene. Those funds help provide food, shelter, emotional support, comfort kits and other immediate relief supplies to thousands of families and individuals impacted by such disasters.

About Truist Foundation 
Truist Foundation is committed to Truist Financial Corporation’s (NYSE: TFC) purpose to inspire and build better lives and communities. The foundation, an endowed private foundation established in 2020 whose operating budget is independent of Truist Financial Corporation, makes strategic investments in a wide variety of nonprofit organizations centered around two focus areas: building career pathways to economic mobility and strengthening small businesses to ensure all communities have an equal opportunity to thrive. Embodying these focus areas are the foundation’s leading initiatives — the Inspire Awards and Where It Starts. Learn more at Truist.com/Foundation.

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Media Contact: 
Kristen Fraser 
media@truist.com