We continue to make environmental improvements in our operating footprint around the world, by using less energy and fewer natural resources, and producing less waste. We are also reducing the impact of our products. This commitment to sustainability is fundamental to our success as a health and hygiene leader.

We use energy in our manufacturing processes, to heat and cool our office buildings, and in our business travel and product distribution. Our other direct environmental impacts include air emissions, fresh water use, wastewater discharge, and solid waste generation.

We regularly review our performance in these areas and look for ways to reduce our impact. It can help reduce costs and improve operational efficiency.

Our Environmental Vision program, launched in 1995, provides us with direction, objectives and targets to improve environmental management and performance. This has helped us increase competitiveness, reduce costs and move toward sustainable manufacturing. We have made significant progress and are now in the third five-year phase of the program, which we call Vision 2010.

Vision 2010 sets out specific environmental objectives and focus areas. These reflect the most significant environmental concerns identified by the United Nations Environment Program and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development that affect our business: energy use, climate change and the availability of clean water.

Many of our facilities are already meeting their Vision 2010 objectives. The table shows the percentage of facilities that had achieved their Vision 2010 targets by the end of 2007.

In this section we discuss each focus area and objective, report our performance in 2007 compared with previous years, and describe targets for the future. We also report on our environmental management systems, legal compliance and environmental expenditures.

In 2007, our main environmental expenditures were operating expenses, including pollution control and maintenance costs, permit and administrative fees and research and engineering costs. Of the $24 million spent on capital environmental improvements in 2007, we spent:

• $9.3 million on wastewater treatment plant upgrades and process water recycling projects to meet governmental requirements and Vision 2010 fresh water use reduction objectives
• $8.8 million on air pollution control equipment to reduce dust emissions and to burn cleaner fuels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
• $5.0 million to either reduce solid waste generation or allow more solid waste to be recycled
• $0.9 million on miscellaneous environmental projects.