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Overview
For many years, reporting on the economic impact of Dow and other corporations focused largely on the Company’s financial health, with only secondary discussion of how our economic contributions impact the quality of life in our society.
The Triple Bottom Line of Sustainability and Dow’s Mission "to constantly improve what is essential to human progress by mastering science and technology" call for a broader assessment of our economic performance. This does not mean that we are reducing the emphasis on financial performance. A strong financial balance sheet provides us with the resources we need to help improve life and achieve our specific sustainability goals.
But a true assessment of Dow’s economic performance must include not only our Company’s financial performance, but also our total contributions to local, national, and global economic prosperity.
How is Dow improving life from an economic perspective? Our contributions fall into two basic categories: the impact of our products, practices, and services on society, and the Company’s economic impact on the regions in which we operate.
In the first category, Dow has fully integrated sustainability principles into our product development process, equipping our people with the mindset and skills to develop products in a more sustainable way, while also creating more sustainable products and practices that contribute to higher quality of life around the world. We know that Sustainable Business is also Good Business. Sustainability-driven product, service, and process innovations create revenue opportunities and reduce operating expenses, enhancing rather than encumbering our financial performance, and securing our future financial health.
Dow’s economic impact on the local communities where we operate is often great, considering the scale of our operations and the modest size of many of our site communities. Dow jobs, taxes, and purchases all contribute significantly to local economies, infrastructure, civic institutions, and culture. Despite our need to actively manage costs, Dow continues to work closely with local government, civic groups, labor unions, local supplier firms, and others to provide opportunities for employment, business relationships, community alliances, and other collaborations that enhance the quality of life for our neighbors as well as ourselves.
Products and Services
How do the products and services of a chemical company contribute to Sustainable Development? We’re answering that challenge by integrating sustainability principles into all of our businesses, as promised in the original Dow Public Report (1999). Special workshops in the business units provide training that results in both mindset and skills to develop and market more sustainable products.
“Living. Improved daily.” is our articulation of this approach to products and services. As a $33 billion enterprise serving customers in more than 180 countries, Dow provides innovative “building block” chemicals, plastics, and agricultural products that add value across a wide spectrum of consumer industries. However, it’s difficult to measure the exact economic impact of Dow ingredients in consumer products or separate the economic impact from the impact on the other areas of the Triple Bottom Line.
Take pharmaceuticals, for example. Dow products make tablets easier to swallow and help control the rate of drug release. Not to mention that packaging made of our products keeps the medicines whole and hygienic while prolonging the shelf life of these valuable products. So, Dow products add value both for the consumer and for our customers, the drug manufacturers.
We are improving the essentials of life and doing so within a Sustainable Development framework. Our "disruptive technologies" – advances that improve the quality of life while replacing earlier technologies – illustrate the long-term potential for sustainable chemistry research and development. For example, the development of soy-based polyols could significantly reduce dependence on finite resources by switching to a renewable raw material. In addition, traditional Dow products like STYROFOAM* insulation and lightweight plastic materials for automotive applications provide a cost-effective solution for consumers and enable downstream cost and energy savings.
NATREON™ is a trademark of Dow AgroSciences LLC.
*Trademark of The Dow Chemical Company
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