“Through our science, our people, and our communities, we pledge to constantly improve and innovate more sustainable ways of contributing,” reads the grandiose PR copy on the website of chemical company DuPont. “This is our commitment to our shared humanity and to helping every community thrive for generations to come.” That’s hardly the only place on the site that the Delaware-based company—which has just under 100,000 employees and, in 2018, made $86 billion—makes sure every visitor knows about DuPont’s steadfast commitment to “inventing a better now” and how they’re working hard to “empower the world with the essential innovations to thrive.”
There’s a reason DuPont’s so desperate to make a good impression: Up until a few years ago, the company was refusing to pay up for knowingly poisoning its employees and consumers over the course of decades with substances the company knew caused multiple kinds of cancer, birth defects, thyroid disease, and more. Despite warning after warning, DuPont kept churning out goods containing the toxins, and it probably wasn’t a coincidence those products were both incredibly popular and incredibly lucrative. The company made $1 billion a year from the substance officially known as perfluorooctanoic acid—a “forever chemical” that the human body can’t break down, which was marketed under the decidedly easier-to-pronounce name Teflon—before it was revealed how extraordinarily dangerous it was. Everyone threw out their Teflon-coated cooking pans, but the damage was already done.
