In 2013, Caterpillar began a transformational journey with respect to sustainability. From February through November, a "Powering the Future" team, one of our Leadership Excellence in Accountability and Development (L.E.A.D.) leadership development programs, performed an in-depth analysis of our existing sustainability capabilities and strategy. The team was comprised of Caterpillar leaders from a wide range of backgrounds and perspectives. They compared Caterpillar sustainability commitments and achievements to those of our peers and competitors. They also examined a variety of global trends and how they relate to the Caterpillar enterprise and our employees.

As the team dug deeper into the various challenges and opportunities, they all reached the same conclusion: It is time to officially recognize sustainability as a core value at Caterpillar. They developed a bold recommendation for this important shift during the 2013 Strategic Planning Committee (SPC) review. Following careful consideration and approval by the Executive Office, sustainability will now be recognized as a core value at Caterpillar. We captured some of the team's perspectives and observations from this project and they can be viewed here: http://youtu.be/zfaHhrYCxnk