DuPont Unveils Sustainable Solutions Business
The new organization integrates three businesses -- DuPont Safety Resources, Coastal Training Technologies, and segments of DuPont Clean Technologies.
DuPont has taken the wraps off a new business, DuPont Sustainable Solutions, that incorporates three businesses -- DuPont Safety Resources, Coastal Training Technologies, and segments of DuPont Clean Technologies. The new unit offers a broad palette of services that is unrivaled by any competitor, its president, James R. Weigand, said April 15. The new company targets a potential $15 billion market opportunity, according to DuPont's announcement last week.
"We acquired Coastal right as the global financial crisis hit. The integration has gone very well. What we were planning to do with Coastal and their capabilities is happening. Coastal brought their own great library of content and great capabilities as far as delivery," Weigand said, adding that two new offerings utilizing DuPont content -- a 16-part energy management series, already released, and an ethics and compliance series to be released in the second half of 2010 -- are putting those capabilities to good use. "It's all going well. It was an interesting time to do the acquisition and an interesting time to manage through, but we're happy with where we are," he added.
DuPont Sustainable Solutions can help other companies with safety, energy efficiency, training, asset reliability and productivity, and clean technologies, he said. The training part of the business is named DuPont Training Solutions Powered by Coastal. Both were announced April 13 in a letter to Coastal's customers and a worldwide news release. The clean technologies portion is focused on technologies, equipment, and services in clean air and clean fuels and initially aimed at the oil and gas and refining sectors but will be expanded to other sectors, Weigand said.
"We think that we can bring those systems and processes that we've used over the years to the marketplace to help other companies," he said. "What we bring now is a continuum of offerings. Originally we were a safety consulting business, and people knew us as a safety consulting business. People didn't think of us having expertise in areas such as their operations and their processes, how we can make them more efficient and effective and productive. What we're trying to do now is take that expertise out to help other companies."