Environmental Stewardship Overview

Korean Initiative Encourages Industry Improvement

In a highly innovative programme to help increase understanding of EH&S principles within the Korean chemical industry, Dow Korea sponsored a series of 10 seminars focusing on small and medium sized companies in the industry. Working in conjunction with the Korean Ministry of the Environment and the Korean Chemicals Management Association, the Dow road show visited major Korean industrial hubs where a total of almost 1,000 delegates participated in these unique educational and experience-sharing academies. Organised as part of Dow’s community relations programme, the seminars not only benefited all delegates, but underlined Dow’s industry leadership in the field of Responsible Care and helped build our reputation in the wider business community.

Converting Prescribed Waste into High Value Compost

One of the products manufactured by Dow's plant at Altona, Australia, is polyether polyol, the raw material for urethane foams used in cars, furniture, and insulation. But the manufacturing process also produces filter waste, which is usually disposed of by incineration or in specialised landfills. Determined to find a more sustainable solution, Dow worked with a local company, which produces high value garden compost from municipal green and food waste. After extensive trials to meet strict regulatory requirements the waste from our plant is now biodegraded into valuable mulch, reducing waste sent to landfill by up to 60 tonnes a year.

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			Environmental Performance

Overview

All of our Environment, Health and Safety (EH&S) activities are driven by the Corporation’s “Vision of Zero” – meaning zero incidents and no harm to the environment or our communities, our people or anyone who handles or uses our product.

When Dow stated this Vision for the first time in 1994, we were aware that it is easier said than done. In support of our Responsible Care® commitment around the world, Dow publicly announced in 1996 voluntary global EH&S goals for 2005. These were ambitious performance targets to measure progress towards Sustainable Development, including targets to reduce chemical emissions, waste and wastewater by 50 percent; to reduce leaks, spills, fires, explosions, work-related injuries and transport incidents by 90 percent; and the promotion of Responsible Care globally.

In Asia-Pacific we have identified the contribution which we needed to make locally towards achieving these global goals, including responsibility and accountability, increased resource productivity and EH&S incident reduction.

The details of our progress towards these goals are included in the graphs which form part of this report. Among the highlights, we are proud that in 2003 the rate of personal injuries in Asia-Pacific was the lowest on record; our local motor vehicle accident rate was the best ever performance; there was not a single significant process safety incident and the very challenging area of distribution incidents was also very good, with the rate of incidents second only to the record performance in 2002.

In the area of leaks and spills (loss of primary containment) our local performance in 2003 did not show the expected improvement and was flat compared with 2002. This has been set as a major focus of attention during 2004.

Responsible Care
One of the key tools to help contribute to the global EH&S goals is Responsible Care, which was first created in 1985 in Canada as a voluntary industry commitment to improve performance and reach out to the community. It has since been adopted in more than 40 countries around the world, with a growing number in Asia-Pacific. These include Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, and New Zealand.

The promotion of Responsible Care in partnership with the local industry association is vital for the continued improvement of EH&S performance all around the world. Through its involvement with industry associations, Dow in the Asia-Pacific has continued to very actively promote the concept of Responsible Care in many countries. This commitment was recognised in 2003 when Dow Pacific EH&S Director Judy Castledine was honored at the 8th Asia-Pacific Responsible Care conference in Seoul – nominated by industry peers throughout the Pacific for her dedication to advocacy for the programme.

Responsible Care helps create focus and measure improvement towards Sustainable Development, where one of the critical elements is resource productivity. In Asia-Pacific most of our plants are less than 10 years old and this is very much in line with our commitment to build to Dow's latest standard or the country standard – whichever is the most stringent. As a result our new facilities – no matter what country they are in – utilise the very latest technology with minimum emissions and waste.

The Challenge of Growth
Our production in Asia-Pacific has grown significantly over the last five years with new plants and facilities, expansion of existing facilities and mergers and acquisitions.

This growth has really challenged us as we strive to reduce chemical emissions across our entire Asia-Pacific operations. Despite this growth in production, we have managed to achieve significant overall reductions in priority emissions as well as significant reductions in emissions of volatile organic compounds.

The programmes and achievements in manufacturing plants and facilities across every country where we operate are too many to list, but some typical examples would include the innovative saltwater recovery project at Kina Ura, Japan; the injury-free plant completions in Zhangjiagang, China; and the corporate award for a waste reduction project in the latex plant at Map Ta Phut, Thailand.

There were some very significant external EH&S challenges during 2003, including responding to the SARS crisis and to the heightened security environment, which exists in the post-September 11 world. While these two issues absorbed very considerable resources in Dow Pacific, we recognise that the broader challenge of improving our EH&S performance is difficult and will require sustained effort over a long period. We have that commitment and are determined to succeed.