Industrial products, solutions and technologies company Honeywell said at an investor event on Thursday that over 60% of its 2021 sales were ESG-oriented, with the company expecting this mix to increase farther.

At its 2022 Investor Conference, company executives highlighted the significant opportunities from major sustainability trends, calling ESG a “revenue driver” and noting that the company is dedicating roughly 60% of its new products R&D to ESG-oriented solutions aimed at addressing global sustainability challenges.

Honeywell SVP and General Counsel Anne Madden discussed several of the focus areas for the company that are geared towards addressing sustainability challenges with solutions ranging from battery energy storage, carbon capture and plastics recycling to thermal and power management for buildings, electric aircraft, sustainable aviation fuel and technology enabling carbon emissions tracking and reduction, among others.

Madden said:

“Our deep domain expertise, our technology innovation, how we operationalize everything we do – and I mean everything – our capital deployment decisions, etc., all embody our ESG principles.”

In his opening presentation at the investor event, Honeywell Chairman and CEO Darius Adamczyk highlighted in particular the growth opportunities for the company’s newly created business unit, Sustainable Technologies Solutions. The unit offering technologies including advanced plastics recycling, renewable fuels, renewable energy storage and controls, and carbon capture and hydrogen economy solutions. The company expects the unit to grow to $700 million revenues in 2024 from $200 million in 2021.

Adamczyk said:

“It’s always great to see one of our breakthroughs become business units. We’ve had five of those happen, and today is the graduation of another one, which is Sustainable Technology Solutions… it’s going to be our fastest growing business unit at Honeywell. It’s going to grow at a clip of a 50% compound annual growth rate for the next 3 years.”

The Honeywell execs also highlighted some of the company’s own sustainability achievements and ESG goals, including a new pledge submitted to the Science Based Targets initiative to expand its climate goals to include Scope 3 emissions, encompassing the company’s full value chain emissions, most of which are created through the use of the company’s products by end users.

Madden said:

“I’m very excited to be able to say that our commitment to the Science Based Targets initiative to set a science-based carbon reduction target that also addresses Scope 3 emissions is going to be a game-changer for Honeywell.”