Peeling back Xylem’s layers of sustainability

Building layers of sustainability requires embedding it in everything we do across Xylem’s three core pillars outlined in our sustainability report: company, customer and communities.

From the company’s long-term sustainability plans, to anticipating our customer’s needs both now and into the future, to serving our communities responsibly through solutions designed to reduce carbon emissions, Xylem’s layers of sustainability run deep.

More specifically, Xylem’s Bell & Gossett is expanding on these overarching sustainability goals in several ways:

Intentional sustainable product design

From choosing the most sustainable product component, to examining a solution through the lenses of how it can better serve our communities and our customers, an intentionally sustainable design is at the heart of our solutions.

For instance, Bell & Gossett’s new Series e-90 Smart Pump features a space saving design available in either horizontal or vertical installations for wide application flexibility and hydraulic coverage. Considered the top efficiency level for motors, its ultra-premium IE5 permanent magnet Smart Motor provides efficiency well above a standard IE3 NEMA Premium efficient asynchronous induction motor.

Providing dramatic improvements in terms of energy savings, initial operating costs and reduced carbon emissions, all in a fully integrated, easy-to-use package, the Series e-90E Smart Pump represents our commitment to more efficient and sustainable product designs.

Handprint vs. footprint

At Xylem, we consider both environmental handprint – or the benefit to the environment – as well as the carbon footprint. By maximizing environmental handprint through products or solutions that require less power and, in turn, emit less CO2, we are minimizing our customers' overall carbon footprint. Besides examples like the e-90 above, our prepackaged or preassembled solutions require fewer physical trips by wholesalers or distributors and reduce the amount of vehicle emissions during the installation of our solutions.

From efficient infrastructure and resource management to sustainable packaging material, we are making strides toward sustainability at every level of our business. A highlight from our sustainability report is that 85% of Xylem’s packaging material consists of 75% reusable, recyclable or compostable content.

Quantifying the benefits

As more of our customers seek to build and design sustainably, more attention will be paid to not only how the product delivers on that promise but how to quantify its carbon footprint reduction. This requires careful research and thoughtful, methodical designs.

Xylem is continually improving, with an initiative centered around lifecycle analysis to define the carbon footprint of a product. Building that data into our product selection tools will enable not only the most efficient component selection, but quantifiable data to back it up.

In addition to providing our customers with reliable and transparent sustainability data, we continue to make our own notable progress. In 2022, we achieved a key sustainability goal to enable the reduction of our customers' CO2 footprint by over 2.8 million metric tons – three years ahead of schedule. Our own Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions are also down 21% year-on-year, showing how far we’ve already come, with 17 of our 22 major facilities already using 100% renewable energy.

Leveraging our extensive experience in the hydronics space and the support of our world class network of representatives, we're helping our customers gain a clearer, more holistic understanding of how each system and solution contributes to a more sustainable future.

Through sustainability initiatives that touch each point of a solution’s lifecycle – from design to supply chain optimization and implementation – we will continue to be a driver of positive change for our communities, helping build better futures.

Learn more about the work we are doing — how we are Building Better — by visiting our resource page: Bellgosset.com/buildingbetter.