Overall, Barron’s ranked Air Products 13th on its 100 Most Sustainable Companies list, up 20 spots from the previous year. Air Products earned first place as the top company for the climate-aligned segment of the rankings, which rated companies for efforts to reduce the impact on the environment throughout their operations and provide sustainable solutions.
Barron’s specifically noted that Air Products, which has appeared on the Most Sustainable Companies list for three consecutive years, has committed billions of dollars of capital toward the largest renewable hydrogen project in history, which will provide carbon-free hydrogen to the world on a massive scale in 2025.
“Sustainability is at the heart of what we do. Our industrial gases, technologies and applications enable customers around the world to reduce their energy use, lower emissions and increase productivity,” said Seifi Ghasemi, Air Products’ Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. “We are proud to be recognized by Barron’s for our sustainability efforts and solutions but know there is always more work to be done, which is why Air Products is playing a lead role in addressing significant energy and environmental challenges through gasification, carbon capture and hydrogen for mobility solutions around the world.”
One key project designed to address the need for clean energy is NEOM. Last year, Air Products, in conjunction with ACWA Power and NEOM, signed an agreement for a $5 billion world-scale green hydrogen-based ammonia production facility powered by renewable energy. The project, which will be equally owned by the three partners, will be located in NEOM―a new model for sustainable living to be located in the northwest corner of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia―and will produce green ammonia for export to global markets. Air Products will be the exclusive off-taker of the green ammonia and will invest an additional $2 billion downstream, bringing the Company’s total investment to $3.7 billion. Air Products will transport the green ammonia around the world to be dissociated to produce green hydrogen for transportation and other markets.
For its fourth annual list of the most sustainable companies, Barron’s worked with Calvert Research & Management, a top sustainable investing firm, which analyzed the 1,000 largest United States (U.S.) publicly held companies, measured by market capitalization. Each company was rated in five key stakeholder categories: shareholders, employees, customers, community and planet.
To further its sustainability efforts, Air Products also announced a new sustainability goal in 2020 to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) intensity (kg CO2/MM BTU) by one-third by the year 2030 from a 2015 baseline.
