Corning Incorporated understands our role in ensuring a healthy and sustainable environment, as well as promoting environmental awareness through the value chain worldwide. How we do things is just as important as what we accomplish.
Corning is committed to complying with and striving to exceed applicable legal requirements, company standards, and contractual agreements in all regions where we operate. In cases where local or national laws, codes and/or regulations impose additional requirements beyond Corning standards, the impacted facilities are required to comply with the more stringent standards.
To support these principles and promote adherence to legal requirements and company standards, Corning maintains a global Environmental Management System (EMS). The EMS is based on the principles of ISO 14001 and includes a collection of procedures and guidelines regarding the management of environmental performance in our facilities, including compliance, continuous improvement, smart resource utilization, and footprint reduction. Through our EMS, we identify environmental aspects and impacts of our operations, set objectives that support continual environmental improvement, track progress in reaching those objectives, and promote compliance with legal requirements. All our manufacturing and research facilities are required to implement the system, track their progress, and conduct both internal and third-party certified environmental audits to obtain and maintain ISO 14001 certification. Facilities that are newly opened, constructed or acquired (including through merger) must become ISO 14001 certified within two years.
Corning’s EMS includes the following elements:
- Environmental guidance documents that provide a framework for setting and reviewing environmental objectives.
- An action plan to achieve initiatives and objectives based on our policies and environmental assessments.
- An organizational structure that identifies specific responsibilities and ensures that environmental tasks are assigned to appropriate personnel.
- Procedures for communicating environmental information, internally and externally.
- Operating procedures to manage environmental impacts, updated according to management of change processes.
- Detailed procedures for responding to emergency situations that have the potential to impact the environment.
- A process to identify, report, investigate, and correct non-conformities with applicable standards and requirements.
- Periodic assessments to ensure the effectiveness of the EMS and progress toward meeting environmental objectives.
Beyond legal requirements, Corning promotes measures to reduce the impact of:
- Air emissions
- Energy utilization
- GHG emissions
- Hazardous substances
- Pollution
- Water usage
- Waste
As of April 2025, examples of such sustainability measures include:
- Emissions & Renewable Energy - We drive efforts to reduce our energy use and emissions, and drive energy efficiency opportunities at our facilities worldwide. Additionally, we are working to reduce our energy use and GHG emissions across our value chain worldwide. This includes a continued effort to increase our use of renewable electricity. Click here to learn more about our current commitments.
- Water - We promote the reduction, reuse, and recycling of water whenever possible within our operations. Local site teams implement water conservation projects, and we prioritize our water focus on sites that are located in high- or extremely high- water-stressed basins.
- Waste & Circular Economy – We are committed to responsible waste management in our direct operations and throughout our supply chain. Local site teams evaluate opportunities to reduce, reuse, recycle, and compost waste whenever possible. We continue efforts to reduce our waste-to-landfill. In our aspirations towards a circular economy, our scientists and engineers look for opportunities to integrate sustainability into our innovation and development process. Where feasible, we look to develop products that use less raw material, as well as more recycled, recyclable, and bio-based materials. We also look for opportunities to partner with our customers and suppliers for return, reuse and upcycling at the end of a product’s life cycle. Examples include, but are not limited to, a package takeback program (link) and reel return recycling programs (OSP and Data Center).
- Technologies – We invest in, and encourage the use of, environmentally friendly technologies and materials in our research, development, and engineering processes, and we continue to develop environmentally-friendly products including investing in low-carbon technologies. Examples of this include Corning Viridian Vials (link), the Corning EDGE Distribution System that connects computers together within hyperscale datacenters (link), and Gasoline Particulate Filters (GPF) that trap fine particulate matter before it enters the air we breathe (link).
- Sustainable sourcing – We seek to mitigate risks and strengthen sustainability in our global supply chain through supplier operations decarbonization, transportation decarbonization, and material decarbonization engagements.
Our sustainability efforts are an example of our actions to make the world a better place through our innovations, which inspire us to become a better version of ourselves. We continue to reduce our vulnerability to climate change impacts by incorporating climate risk and adaptation within our strategic planning. Our mission is another 170 years of life-changing innovation. Corning commits to reviewing and updating the environmental policy at least once every five years.
