DuPont’s Clear into the Future Initiative Focuses on Enhancing the Natural Environment through Community Engagement
Sustainability Challenge:
Partnerships and collaboration between industry, communities and academic institutions can help protect the natural environment.
Chemistry Solution:
DuPont has established and enacted a global initiative to fund and support nonprofit organizations for programs focused on protecting and improving the environment and sponsoring public nature centers.
Sustainability Benefit:
In 2019, DuPont sponsored 23 projects spanning nine countries and four regions to protect and improve the environment.
Partnerships and collaborations between industry and nonprofit and community-oriented organizations can play a meaningful role in establishing and strengthening initiatives to enhance and improve the natural environment.
DuPont launched its Clear into the Future® (CITF) global initiative in 2007 to help protect and improve the natural environment through community engagement. The CITF program focuses on two main components: providing grants of up to $10,000 to nonprofit organizations and academic institutions working on projects aligned with CITF’s mission, and sponsoring public education nature centers.
The employee-driven CITF Grant Program seeks project proposals focused on reducing or preventing greenhouse gas emissions to help mitigate the effects of climate change, promoting water stewardship to enhance water quality, protecting community biodiversity, and reducing pollution and waste in the environment.
In 2019, CITF provided more than $210,000 in funding to sponsor 23 projects spanning nine countries, ranging from reforestation initiatives, to community garden installations and renewable energy implementation.
For example, in 2019 a DuPont employee at the Midland site collaborated with The Nature Conservancy to conduct feasibility assessments for harvestable buffers in Michigan’s Saginaw Bay Watershed, to help protect and improve water quality from the prevalence of intense farming in the area. Harvestable buffers help reduce and capture sediment and nutrients in runoff, and also can remove residual phosphorus from soil through its capture and removal in harvested hay, which farmers can then sell for additional income. Through this project, the Nature Conservancy will ultimately support a market for voluntary harvestable buffers, and share the results of the assessment with watershed residents through various educational events.
DuPont also sponsors two publicly accessible nature educations centers near its headquarters in Delaware as part of the CITF initiative. The DuPont Nature Center in Milford, Delaware, is a science-based educational facility with interactive exhibits designed to connect people with Delaware Bay’s natural history and economy. The DuPont Environmental Education Center in Wilmington, Delaware, is a refuge with a visitor center, pond loop, and local community programs to empower students through nature education.
The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environment Control and the Delaware Nature Society run the public nature education centers, and also collaborate with DuPont on educational initiatives in the local Delaware headquarters community.
