Las Vegas, NV - May 04, 2005
Larry Washington, corporate vice president, Sustainability and Environment, Health and Safety (EH&S), The Dow Chemical Company, today addressed attendees at the American Chemistry Council's annual Responsible Care conference held at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.
Washington's talk, entitled "Bridging Two Decades," discussed Dow's approach to sustainability through the implementation of ground-breaking EH&S goals. "When we set our 10-year goals in 1996, this was a huge step towards greater transparency with our stakeholders, but we knew we needed to hold ourselves accountable by regularly reporting our progress publicly. We published our first Public Report in 1997 and we've published updates annually since then, although in 2000 we moved to online reporting."
Washington cited some examples of how Dow is continuing to demonstrate support Responsible Care through its activities. "In March, Dow published a new Product Safety Web site to make our product safety processes and information more transparent and readily available to the public. Specifically, the site describes the processes Dow uses to characterize and manage the risks associated with its products, and provides general information on our product stewardship efforts."
Washington also addressed what Dow is doing to prepare goals for the next decade. "In the next 10 years our goals will have a broader external focus, and we are just now in the process of defining what those will be. We do envision that our goals will be focused on the areas of product impact, our responsibilities to the communities where we operate, as well as our overall impact on the world.
"As we go through the process of developing and refining our goals, we're being sure to take into account the ideas and opinions of all our stakeholders who have been following our progress against the first set of goals with much interest," Washington concluded.
Since 1988, the U.S. chemical industry, through the American Chemistry Council, has implemented Responsible Care, a voluntary program to achieve improvements in environmental, health and safety performance beyond levels required by the U.S. government. The program has resulted in significant reductions in releases to air, land and water, major improvements in workplace and community safety, and expanded programs to research and test chemicals for potential health and environmental impacts. More information about Responsible Care can be found on the Web site for the American Chemistry Council.
Dow is a leader in science and technology, providing innovative chemical, plastic and agricultural products and services to many essential consumer markets. With annual sales of $40 billion, Dow serves customers in 175 countries and a wide range of markets that are vital to human progress: food, transportation, health and medicine, personal and home care, and building and construction, among others. Committed to the principles of sustainable development, Dow and its 43,000 employees seek to balance economic, environmental and social responsibilities. References to "Dow" or the "Company" mean The Dow Chemical Company and its consolidated subsidiaries unless otherwise expressly noted.
