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Dow's EH&S Goals for 2005

In 1996, Dow publicly announced these aggressive, voluntary, global Environment, Health & Safety Goals for the Year 2005. So far, we are making great strides. The numbers are going in the right direction — down.

Responsibility & Accountability
To be a responsible corporate citizen; to be open and responsive to ideas and concerns; to integrate environmental considerations into our business decisions; to design or modify our products and processes to minimize their environmental, health and safety impact; to foster partnerships among key stakeholders to find practical solutions to challenges; to manage our lands to protect and enhance wildlife and ecosystems.

Aggressively promote the Responsible Care® ethic:
  • Fully implement Codes of Management Practices globally by 1997
  • Promote Responsible Care ethic among major associations, customers, suppliers and policy makers to advocate global regulatory harmonization
  • Incorporate principles of sustainable development and eco-efficiency into business strategies

Prevent Environment, Health & Safety Incidents
To value — above all things - the safety of our people and our communities; to continuously improve Dow's performance to protect the environment, health and safety of our workforce, neighbors and the public; to work with our distributors, customers and suppliers to continuously improve the way we and they handle, transport and use our products.

Significantly improve Dow's EH&S performance by reducing:

  • Injuries and illness per 200,000 workhours by 90 percent
  • Loss of primary containment incidents (leaks, breaks and spills) by 90 percent
  • Transportation incidents per 10,000 shipments by 90 percent
  • Process safety incidents (fires, explosions and significant chemical releases) by 90 percent
  • Motor vehicle incidents per 1 million miles by 50 percent

Increase Resource Productivity
To continuously enhance resource productivity to reduce risk, minimize Dow's impact on the environment and health and increase global competitiveness through greater efficiency; to emphasize pollution prevention in our processes; to transfer and use the best available technology throughout the Dow world to build the most environmentally sound and safe facilities.

Further reduce air and water emissions for global operations:

  • Priority compounds by 75 percent
  • Chemical emissions by 50 percent

Priority compounds include persistent, toxic and bioaccumulative (PTB) compounds, known human carcinogens, selected ozone depleting substances, and high-volume toxic compounds.

Related Goal: Reduce dioxin emissions by 90 percent by 2005

  • Reduce the amount of waste and waste water generated per pound of production by 50 percent
  • Reduce energy use per pound of production by 20 percent

Business Accountability
Our eight global business groups are directly accountable for their own EH&S performance, in addition to profit and loss. In fact, many businesses tie a portion of their variable pay directly to the achievement of EH&S goals. By hardwiring EH&S into the business, we are spreading ownership and accountability into the hands of every Dow employee.

To see how we are performing against these goals visit EH&S Goals for 2005.


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