6 Questions with… Keith Wandell

Speaking of Sustainability

Keith Wandell serves as President and Chief Operating Officer for all three business units. He evaluates all operations to ensure that the environment and sustainability are key elements of our business strategy. Read Keith’s perspective on sustainability and what it means to continued success

Why is it important that Johnson Controls value sustainability?
I think that when you look at the world today, and you look at the world 25 – 50 years from now, we have a tremendous responsibility to try to protect the environment, limit the amount of natural resources that we use, utilize the energy sources we have more efficiently. This becomes a responsibility for us as a leadership of a major corporation, but also provides for the future success and ongoing sustainability of our business for the next generations to come.
We hold ourselves to a much more stringent metric. We care about our employees and we care about them working in a very safe and health conscious environment. We hold sustainability as one of our core values.

Environmental stewardship is becoming more important everyday. What are the key activities we are doing to be good environmental stewards across the business units?
I think the whole concept of sustainability and energy conservation is really at the core of what we do in our building efficiency business. I think we are in a position to leverage the last 100 years of what he have done in that business, to be on the forefront, to be seen as a company that promotes and develops solutions around energy conservation and green. If you think about where we are today and look into the future, one of the things that’s becoming more important is indoor air quality – whether in hospitals or workplaces. I think we are very uniquely positioned to make a difference in that area.
When you look at our battery business, one of the things we are most proud of is that we, along with the Battery Council International, led the government legislation around lead acid battery recycling. Now lead acid batteries are one of the most recycled consumer product in America. We are really proud of that.
In our automotive business we have been on the forefront of working on recycled materials for years – taking weight out of the materials for light weighting vehicles to help with fuel efficiency.

Talk more about social responsibility. What are some of the things that you think are helpful that we are focusing on as an organization?
One of the things that jumps front of mind for me is our minority sourcing and minority supplier development program. We are one of over 12 companies that are on the billion dollar round table, and this year our total spend will be about $1.5 billion (USD) with minority suppliers. We have challenged the organization to get to $2 billion (USD) and we are on track to get there.
We do this because it is the right thing to do. We feel it’s important to develop a supply base of training and support and develop ways to help minority businesses gain access to capital.
I’m currently chairman on the Michigan Minority Development Council. We are proud of our involvement and we take this as our social responsibility and drive it forward.

A lot of what Johnson Controls includes being a component of our customers’ products. How do we influence our suppliers and customer partners to also focus on sustainability?
There is a lot of opportunity for us to do that. We do it with our Building Efficiency business every day with where we provide energy efficient solutions.
We are working with the car companies and always bringing to them ideas. An example is soy foam seating and reducing the amount of chemicals used in seating. It will have a huge environmental impact.
In our Power Solutions business and our investment in hybrid technology we are working on bringing hybrid solutions to the market place – it’s an important factor in our business.