Air Products Announces New Goals for Global Female/U.S. Minority Representation in Professional and Managerial Roles

LEHIGH VALLEY, Pa., Oct. 14, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- As part of its publicly stated goal of being the most diverse industrial gas company in the world, Air Products (NYSE: APD) is taking another measurable, transparent step towards achieving that objective. Today, the company announced its goals to further increase the percentage of females and U.S. minorities in professional and managerial roles.

By 2025, Air Products aims to achieve at least 28 percent female representation in the professional and managerial population globally, and at least 20 percent minority representation in that same population in the United States. These measures are increases from 25 and 17 percent representation (2020 baseline), respectively.

With a broad operating scope and cultural landscape of more than 17,000 employees in over 50 countries, Air Products established these new targets following analysis of its global employee representation metrics and future talent needs, as well as assessing industry benchmarks and peer companies.

"This is another example of Air Products putting its values into action," said Seifi Ghasemi, Air Products' chairman, president and CEO. "Our higher purpose includes bringing people together to collaborate and innovate solutions to the world's energy and environmental challenges. In order to realize this, we want to further increase representation of diverse talent in our managerial and leadership positions and continue building an inclusive culture where all employees feel they belong and matter."

Air Products plans to share progress towards these goals both internally and externally. In its 2020 Sustainability Report for the first time, Air Products published 2019 metrics on the representation of U.S. minorities, and added an additional level of metrics for females in Executive roles.

"We believe that by being transparent about our goals and our progress against them, we can visibly demonstrate our genuine commitment to diversity, inclusion and belonging and bring everyone along on the journey with us," Ghasemi said.

The goals to increase the percentages of global female and U.S. minorities in professional and managerial roles are the latest in a series of actions and programs to build an even more diverse and inclusive workplace at Air Products, including: 

• An enhanced Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging company policy;
• Publishing company diversity metrics internally and externally for transparency and accountability to drive progress; 
• Accountability of senior leaders companywide to create and execute Diversity Action Plans, including diverse succession planning; 
• Leadership Development Programs for diverse talent (women, minorities); 
• Monthly "Inclusion Moment" topics for discussions companywide;
• Manager training on unconscious bias; 
• An expanding Inclusion Network, which is focused on attracting and retaining talent, raising cultural awareness, developing colleagues, and contributing to the company's overall diversity, inclusion and belonging objectives; 
• Numerous Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), including: AERO (Asian Employee Resource Organization), BERG (Black Employee Resource Group), EDGE (Ethnically Diverse Gulf Employees), Enable (Valuing employees of ALL abilities), HOLA (Hispanic Organization of Latinos and Amigos), ISERO (Indian Subcontinent Employee Resource Organization), Spectrum (LGBTQ+ Resource Group), Spectrum EU (LGBTQ+ Europe), WSN (Women's Success Network), WSN Houston (WSN Chapter for Houston), WSN Operations (WSN Chapter for Operations), WSN EU (WSN Chapter in Europe), UDAAN (Women in India), KWS (Korean Women's Success Network), and the company's newest and soon to be launched ERG in the Middle East (MEERG).
• Four Diversity and Inclusion Councils in Asia in China, Korea, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia.

Air Products' new diversity goals come on the heels of other, recently-announced sustainability commitments. Last month, the company announced its "Third by '30" goal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions (CO₂) intensity (kg CO₂/MM BTU) by one-third by the year 2030. Air Products set this new target as it closes in on successfully attaining a series of 2020 Sustainability goals. 

About Air Products
Air Products (NYSE:APD) is a world-leading industrial gases company in operation for 80 years. Focused on serving energy, environment and emerging markets, the Company provides essential industrial gases, related equipment and applications expertise to customers in dozens of industries, including refining, chemical, metals, electronics, manufacturing, and food and beverage. Air Products is also the global leader in the supply of liquefied natural gas process technology and equipment. The Company develops, engineers, builds, owns and operates some of the world's largest industrial gas projects, including gasification projects that sustainably convert abundant natural resources into syngas for the production of high-value power, fuels and chemicals.

The Company had fiscal 2019 sales of $8.9 billion from operations in 50 countries and has a current market capitalization of about $65 billion, making it the largest American chemical company by market capitalization. More than 17,000 passionate, talented and committed employees from diverse backgrounds are driven by Air Products' higher purpose to create innovative solutions that benefit the environment, enhance sustainability and address the challenges facing customers, communities, and the world. For more information, visit airproducts.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. 

NOTE: This release may contain forward-looking statements within the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on management's reasonable expectations and assumptions as of the date of this release regarding important risk factors. Actual performance and financial results may differ materially from projections and estimates expressed in the forward-looking statements because of many factors not anticipated by management, including risk factors described in the company's Form 10K for its fiscal year ended September 30, 2019.

SOURCE Air Products

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