Eastman.com is a Fortune 500 chemical company located in Kingsport, Tenn.
Eastman Chemical Company
Eastman Chemical Company is a large and world famous manufacturer of chemicals, fibers and plastic. Headquartered in Kingsport, Tennessee, Eastman is a Fortune 500 company with annual sales of 7 billion dollars and 11,000 employees. With a past deep involved in the WWII war effort, the company has much more peaceful and without doubt more profitable ventures nowadays. The company itself became independent and was split apart from the even more famous Eastman Kodak company in 1994 and has been publicly traded on the stock exchange since 1997.
Website
Eastman.com follows rigorously the standards associated with corporate web design. All the features you would expect in a corporate website are there, beginning with the investor relations section, following up with a detailed account of the company’s history and values and finishing with the career opportunities section. It is obvious though that the company wishes more than a bland corporate website. The main focus is put on the research and development area and there are presented a great deal of innovations that the company is introducing. This section constitutes the very core of the presentation and some of the stories presented there are quite interesting, even for the casual reader.
What is a bit upsetting in regards with Eastman.com is the, at times, improper website organization. To reach a less used section, such as the history timeline, the user must click no less than 4 times. This preference for vertical hierarchy, instead of a more common, horizontal one, makes the browsing experience frustrating and counterintuitive at times.
History
Eastman Chemical’s early beginnings can be identified back in the pre World War II era, in 1920, when a scarcity in materials such as photographic paper, optical glass, gelatin and many chemicals (methanol, acetic acid, acetone) was registered. For that reason, George Eastman, the Eastman Kodak’s founder decided to create a new branch specialized in chemical production. The new founded company, Tennessee Eastman had two major platforms: organic chemicals and acetyls. The company gains its success during the World War II, when it succeeded to produce a million and a half pounds of explosive daily and also produced additives used in the production of synthetic rubber on a similar large scale.
In the future years the division which would later become Eastman Chemical begun to manufacture a large variety of products that were fast becoming a necessity in everyday life: polyester fibers, plastics, adhesives, industrial additives and so on. Eastman Chemical was officially born though in 1994 from spinning outside the control of the Eastman Kodak Company. Up until that moment, the infrastructure belonged to a separate division. Nowadays the company is the world’s largest producer of PET polymers and a major supplier of cellulose acetate fibers.
Impact
The chemical industry has long been regarded in a negative light due to its perceived environmental hazards. Eastman Chemical makes no exception. In the 90’s the company found itself in an awkward instance as it was named as one of the USA’s top polluters. This came as a direct result of the experiments conducted in the 80’s which attempted to switch from crude oil (one of the industry’s main raw materials) to coal through a procedure called coal gasification. While these steps had the noble aim of reducing USA’s dependence on foreign oil, it also led to many harmful chemicals being released.
From an objective point of view though, the amount of harmful chemicals released in the environment has been consistently decreasing since the 80’s as outlined in the very same report that pointed the finger towards the company.
As the environmental issue became prominent in both the financial and mainstream media, Eastman Chemical further refined its methods and became one the “cleanest” players in the chemical industry. This tendency culminated with the adoption of the so called Responsible Care policy, which sets some very high standards for issues such as safety, health and environment. In this case controversy proved a beneficial factor as the company management had an extra reason to cultivate an environmentally friendly image.
Despite this, even to this day, some environmental activists still point the finger at the chemical industry, which is perhaps “benefiting” from more prejudice than it deserves.
Languages
English
Additional Information
Related Domains
External Links
- Stock: EMN
- Alexa: Eastman.com
