The Corporate Citizen, April 2007
The Human Element: Setting the Standard for Sustainability in the Next Decade
Eleven years ago, Dow set important, ambitious, and what some may have considered, unattainable, goals for improving our environment, health and safety performance.
Through focus and commitment, we have met most of those goals, exceeded some, and have come very close in most of the others. As a result, our workplaces are safer, our energy use is more efficient, and our corporate governance is stronger and more vigilant. We have been recognized as a world leader in these areas, and I'm proud of that.
For all the work and dedication that went into progress toward these goals, the goals themselves were about putting Dow's house in better order. It's a job that never ends. Sustainability begins at home, and we will always have more work to do to make our company better. It was the right path for us in 1996, and it's the right path to continue down in the future, but it's only part of the path.
Companies like ours have a responsibility to apply the science from our laboratories to the improvement of the human condition beyond the fences of our company. We have much work to do to extend our command of the elements of modern chemistry and embrace the most important element of all—the Human Element.
Our commitment to sustainability and our next generation of goals—our ambitious 2015 Goals, which we introduced in 2006, are our promises to responsibly engage the communities and people with whom we do business, thereby honoring and protecting the Human Element at the core of our existence.
Embodied in our goals are three main objectives:
First, Dow will support our immediate family--the people and communities we touch in more than 150 hometowns in 37 countries around the world every day. By collaborating actively with the communities where we have a major presence, we ensure our facilities are safe and that we are a good neighbor and partner, working at the local level to identify and support the priorities that are most important to their well-being and prosperity.
Second, Dow will pioneer and contribute to new solutions for some of the most serious problems faced by the most vulnerable members of the larger human family. Beyond our 150 hometown communities are hundreds of thousands of communities that face serious challenges brought on by the sheer size of the world's population and the effect of our use of resources on our planet.
By 2015, Dow is committed to achieving at least three breakthroughs that will significantly improve quality of life for those facing the challenges of:
- Sustainable water supplies
- An adequate food supply
- Decent housing
- Personal health and safety.
We will engage these four challenges--water, food, housing, health-- because we are an organization with the resources and technology to make a genuine difference, and most importantly, the will to be a leader. It is more than ambition that drives this leadership. We know if we do not lead, we are vulnerable ourselves.
To be a successful, thriving enterprise, we need a healthy environment that meets the needs of people and communities. We need a stable and secure political climate. We need a healthy and optimistic community of potential customers and consumers.
Simply put, we need to do our part to set the stage for a future that is as full of promise and opportunity as our past has been.
Finally, beyond the threats facing the most vulnerable, we will confront two challenges to which ALL human families are vulnerable: the unsustainable way countries, companies and individuals of the world use energy, and the related problem of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.
The chemical industry as a whole is the world's single most intense consumer of fossil fuels. We don't just burn fuel, we reorganize its chemistry to make things that are essential to modern life. And for the near-term, our industry will continue to depend on oil and natural gas as our primary sources of energy and raw material.
It is now clear that the world's climate is impacted by increases in greenhouse gases, of which CO2 created by the burning of fossil fuels, is the single largest component.
Some have said our industry's intense appetite for fossil fuels disqualifies us from being part of the solution. But no one in the world is more aware of the need to reinvent our dependency on oil and natural gas than we are. And we will lead the way on energy transformation because we have to. We have taken some important steps already.
From 1996 to 2005, we cut our consumption of energy per pound of product by more than 20 percent. And, over the next ten years, we are confident we can improve our energy efficiency by an additional 25 percent.
With greater efficiency and a commitment to burning cleaner fuels, we will also reduce the intensity of our greenhouse gas emissions by 2.5% annually between 2006 and 2015. Because of our scale, that step alone will reduce the equivalent of the CO2 emissions from 3 million automobiles or 6 million homes over this time period.
But we cannot be content with focusing on our own footprint. Even today, there are Dow products--such as Styrofoam™ building insulation--and products on the horizon like low-cost hydrogen fuel cell technology--that will save more energy than they cost to create. We must also use our resources, technology, innovation and influence to pioneer these and other new ideas for solving the problem in general. And we will.
As we strive to achieve our 2015 Sustainability Goals, we will engage the problems of the world by raising the bar for ourselves and by being a role model for other organizations to follow.
We will build on our company's rich legacy of leadership in solving the world's most pressing problems with a spirit of fearless accountability not just for our own footprint on the planet, but the collective footprint we make because we are part of the human family.
In some cases, we know pretty well what needs to be done and how to do it. In others, we have a roadmap, but it's a road whose twists and turns will surely be unpredictable.
For still others, we have to invent the roadmap itself. And we will. And we will make it happen by keeping faith with The Human Element.
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Led by Andrew N. Liveris' leadership as a Board Member and most recently as Chairman and CEO, Dow has heightened its commitment to sustainable development, including environmental stewardship, corporate responsibility, product innovation and economic prosperity. As a result, Dow has experienced consistent revenue growth, and now employs more than 43,000 people and provides products and services to more than 175 countries. Through sustainability and efficiency efforts driven by Mr. Liveris, Dow recently received the Responsible Care Energy Efficiency Award.
In addition to serving as the Chairman of the Board for Dow, Mr. Liveris serves on the Board of Directors for corporations and organizations including Citigroup, International Business Council and World Business Council for Sustainable Development.
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