East Hartford, Conn., April 22, 2015: In recognition of the 45th annual observance of Earth Day in the United States and its own 90th anniversary, Pratt & Whitney, a United Technologies Corp. company, is marking its progress toward minimizing the impact of its operations and products on the planet.
“Pratt & Whitney is especially committed to making environmental sustainability an important part of its business,” Mary Anne Cannon, Pratt & Whitney Environment, Health & Safety vice president, said. “We always strive to maintain the highest standards everywhere we operate and institute meaningful, long-lasting environmental initiatives.”
Pratt & Whitney has implemented worldwide initiatives centered on the company’s 2025 sustainability goals. These initiatives are helping drive significant reductions in environmental metrics, even with the company in the midst of an unprecedented production increase to grow commercial and military engine volume to levels not seen at the company since the early 1980s.
“Conventional wisdom might say it’s logical for a company’s environmental impact to increase, not decrease, as its production increases,” Cannon said. “But while we expect to grow commercial and military engine production from about 800 engines a year in 2015 to more than 1,800 by 2020, we’re also setting and achieving aggressive sustainability goals that focus on waste, energy, water, safety and wellness, materials, suppliers and products.”
Pratt & Whitney’s 2025 sustainability goals include an 80 percent reduction in water consumption from 2000 levels. To date, the company has reduced water use by 69 percent, or just over one billion gallons – the equivalent of nearly 42 million 10-minute showers.
Water conservation efforts are yielding significant results at the companies and joint ventures in Singapore in which Pratt & Whitney holds interests. Since 2010, these Pratt & Whitney-affiliated companies in Singapore have implemented closed looping wastewater processes; installed low flow faucets and fixtures; harvested rainwater; tightened cooling tower management; installed filtration systems; and utilized recycled water in industrial processes. Those initiatives have allowed the company to reduced potable water consumption on the island by 12 million gallons – enough to fill 18 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Additionally, Homogenous Metals, Inc., Pratt & Whitney’s Clayville, New York-based facility that manufactures nickel super alloy metal powders for aerospace applications, recently installed an employee-designed closed-loop production-processing cooling system, replacing one that fed water to the facility from a local creek. Not only does the new system maintain a constant water temperature that enhances the reliability of the cooling process, it also reduces annual water usage at the facility by about 196 million gallons.
In addition to its water conservation initiatives, Pratt & Whitney’s East Hartford, Connecticut, campus has undertaken an enhanced paper-recycling project where the site collects, shreds and bales waste paper on site, and sends it to a local paper mill where the material is processed and returned to the facility as paper towels and toilet paper. Compared to normal paper recycling, the East Hartford process saves 1.47 million gallons of water, 380,000 lbs. of paper, and 210 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually.
Pratt & Whitney is equally focused on reducing the environmental impact of its products as it is with its operations. The company’s revolutionary PurePower® engine family with its exclusive Geared Turbofan™ technology provides airlines with a more than 16 percent reduction in fuel burn compared with today’s engines while also significantly lowering emissions, noise and maintenance costs. The PurePower engine family reduces carbon emissions by 3,600 metric tonnes per aircraft per year – equal to the effect of planting more than 900,000 trees. It also reduces aircraft noise footprints by more than 75 percent and is expected to surpass stringent emissions standards by more than 50 percent.
Pratt & Whitney is a world leader in the design, manufacture and service of aircraft engines and auxiliary power units. United Technologies Corp., based in Hartford, Connecticut, provides high technology products and services to the building and aerospace industries. To learn more about UTC, visit its website at www.utc.com.
Source: Pratt & Whitney