Ongoing Tasks

	In this section


			New Tasks Ongoing Tasks Completed Tasks

Brand

Sustainable Development will be an integral component of how our corporate reputation will be measured and grown.

In 2002, we established a model to clarify and align our understanding of corporate reputation:

Brand + Performance = Reputation

In 2003, we strove to identify metrics to track reputation across our key stakeholder groups of employees, customers, shareholders, and communities.

As a result, we identified the following reputation metrics as best practice and plan to draw the data from existing Dow research efforts to further quantify the impact of our brand and performance efforts on our overall reputation:

Quality of Products – Offers quality products and services.
Strength of Management – Experienced senior executives lead the Company through strategic and visionary thinking.
Effective Communications – Communicates with customers, analysts, employees, and members of the community in an open and transparent manner.
Innovation – Develops new ideas for products, services, or ways of doing business.
Financial Soundness – Financially strong in terms of sales, profits, or stock price.
Attracting and Retaining Talent – Recruits and retains high-performing employees.
Social Responsibility – Operates in a way that contributes to the communities in which it does business.
Environmental Responsibility – Operates in a way that is safe for the environment.
Ethical Business Practices – Manages our business in a way that follows related principles and laws.
Overall Reputation Rating – Perception rating of the Company’s overall reputation.

Start: January 2002/Deadline: Year-end 2005

Transparency

We will publish Dow's opinions on topics relevant to us and our stakeholders, and we will have developed a set of Internet-based tools that can be used for meaningful discussions about these topics.

Corporate transparency has emerged as a focal point of societal expectations. Corporations like Dow are experiencing pressures from stakeholders to be more transparent about their values, commitments, and performance. In this "show me" world, stakeholders want to know who the Company is, what it stands for, and whether it is living up to its values and commitments to society.

Our Global Public Report, Benelux regional report, and 20 individual site reports are the best evidence we can offer of our commitment to transparent operations. We strive to provide the most comprehensive report of our progress and challenges in a format that is approachable and understandable to Dow stakeholders everywhere.

In 2003, Dow was a member of the Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI) Transparency Work Group. The Chair of the Communication and Marketing committee is also a working member of the Transparency Work Group and a senior Dow employee. Working with other global companies of similar size, Dow is helping define a standard for transparent operations.

Start: January 2002/Deadline: Year-end 2004

Integration

All businesses, functions and major sites will integrate the Sustainable Development principles into their respective strategies and plans and have specific implementation plans in place.

In 2002, we made significant progress in integrating Sustainable Development principles with the various business, functional, and site strategies within the Company. Over a dozen businesses have added Sustainable Development principles, looking for gaps and areas of strength. This has led to action items for the individual businesses.

In 2003, as Dow focused principally on improving its financial performance, very little additional activity took place in terms of further integration of Sustainable Development within the Company. A couple of businesses and sites did proceed with integration of Sustainable Development into their business strategies, as they were undergoing an overall review at the time.

We were successful in adding key Sustainable Development criteria into our "Class of Facility" value improvement practice. This is a facilitated review that triggers business team input to establish the kind of facility that is needed to meet the business plan.

Sustainable Development criteria that are now part of this evaluation include energy intensity and type, material intensity, overall emissions, priority emissions, illnesses and injuries, and fresh water use.

Given the continued focus on cost reduction, we are extending this activity out to year-end 2005 – allowing us to incorporate Sustainable Development thinking into emerging long-term corporate and business strategies.

Start: January 2002/Deadline: Year-end 2005

Citizenship

We will publish a position paper on Citizenship based on internal and external stakeholder dialogue, for use as a guide in developing growth opportunities.

Of all the tasks on the To Do List, this one caused the greatest dialogue and debate within the Company. Even the name was heavily debated. (Task was redefined from “Responsible Globalization” in late 2002.) One view was that if we called this activity Responsible Globalization, we might (erroneously) indicate that we as a company were irresponsible in the past. Another view was that we simply don’t have the ability to define the term – it has been defined in the outside world by our stakeholders, and we will need to respond to the concerns inherent in the term.

In the end, we decided that we wanted our internal element name to reflect a positive, forward-looking approach to the group of issues associated with this element. We chose Citizenship as the term, and defined it as:

"The manner in which Dow will achieve value growth to meet societal needs, while being held accountable for our actions."

The struggle we continue to have is to fully understand what is viewed as good corporate citizenship, what is not, and what are the boundary conditions that define our actions and behaviors. As a result, we did not complete or publish the position paper in 2003, as described in our To Do List. Dow is committed to further understanding this complex set of issues through active stakeholder dialogue. In 2004, we will use our standing stakeholder dialogue mechanisms, such as our Corporate Environmental Advisory Council and our Community Advisory Panels throughout the world, together with other stakeholder forums, to more extensively explore Globalization and Citizenship, and Dow’s role. As such, we have moved the completion date for this task out to the end of 2005.

Start: January 2002/Deadline: Year-end 2005

Environment, Health & Safety (EH&S)

Dow will strive to meet its 2005 EH&S goal commitments.

Throughout the Company, we remain focused on Environment, Health & Safety (EH&S) excellence. Progress toward meeting the 2005 EH&S goals will continue while we maintain compliance with Dow and regulatory requirements.

Dow senior leadership regularly reviews our Company’s results and sets future direction through quarterly meetings of the EH&S Management Board. As we near the end of our 2005 goal commitments, we continue to aim for our Vision of Zero – zero injuries, zero incidents, and zero environmental harm.

Start: 1995/Deadline: Year-end 2005

Industry Alignment

We will provide leadership to the American Chemistry Council and other global industry associations to establish additional performance requirements and external verification to the Responsible Care^® initiative and implement these at Dow.

In 2003, Dow established an internal, global network of EH&S leaders to provide input into strategic reviews and various discussions (e.g., Business Value) on Responsible Care^® in Europe, Brazil, Canada, the U.S., and Asia/Pacific. Dow had active representation on two of the five Responsible Care sub-teams chartered by the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA) and selected industry CEOs from around the world. They are carrying out a strategic review of Responsible Care at the global level and will develop a more consistent global approach to meeting evolving and emerging stakeholder needs and expectations. Good progress was made toward the finalization of a global Responsible Care Strategy by mid-2004. Internally, Dow continued to strengthen the global utilization of its Responsible Care Management System and to drive improvement of EH&S metrics via our focus on Dow’s EH&S 2005 goals.

Start: January 2002/Deadline: Year-end 2004

Community Surveys

Conduct regular perception surveys to track progress toward our goal of being seen as a “good neighbor and valued member of the community” by at least 80 percent of the residents in communities where Dow has a major impact.

Start: September 1999/Deadline: Year-end 2005

What Do You Think?

Responsible Care^® is a registered service mark of the American Chemistry Council