3.9) By 2030, substantially reduce the number of deaths and illnesses from hazardous chemicals and air, water and soil pollution and contamination
Dow is using technologies such as Dow PRIMAL™ Bio-based Acrylic Emulsions in formulated paints to replace petroleum-sourced materials with plant-based carbon. These paints deliver excellent properties with ultra-low odor, low VOC and low emissions. They also help improve indoor air quality by capturing formaldehyde which is a known air pollutant.
Goal 6: Ensure Water & Sanitation
6.3) By 2030, improve water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimizing release of hazardous chemicals and materials, halving the proportion of untreated wastewater and increasing recycling and safe reuse globally
ECOFAST™ Pure Textile Treatment is another example of Dow’s commitment. This product helps the textile industry tackle sustainability challenges by reducing water and dye use by up to 50 percent, and enables highly efficient use of process chemicals used to dye cotton fabric. Combined, this can help reduce the likelihood of pollution in wastewater streams.
Goal 7: Ensure energy for all
7.2) By 2030, increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix
Dow is the leading customer of clean energy in its sector and is amongst the top 25 worldwide companies for renewable power use. The company is increasing the use of renewable energy in its production processes, while also advancing material for renewable energy (including photovoltaics). Dow has contracts for power acquired by wind, solar, hydropower, biomass and landfill gas worldwide.
A photovoltaic system (PV) is a solar power system designed to supply solar polar through photovoltaics. As the global photovoltaic industry continues to grow, the industry is in constant need of modules with longer service life and better reliability. Dow fulfills this need by supplying ENGAGE™ PV Polyolefin Elastomers (POE). ENGAGE™ PV Polyolefin Elastomers (POE) contribute to clean energy by providing opportunities for exceptional long-term performance, reliability and lower overall costs. Their top and bottom PV encapsulant films help improve resistance to potential induced degradation (PID), especially for high-efficiency bifacial solar cells. As a result, Dow’s ENGAGE™ PV POEs reduces the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) including total system costs.
Goal 9: build infrastructure, foster innovation
9.4) By 2030, upgrade infrastructure and retrofit industries to make them sustainable, with increased resource-use efficiency and greater adoption of clean and environmentally sound technologies and industrial processes, with all countries taking action in accordance with their respective capabilities
The Olympic Games represent the apex of athletic prowess—challenging athletes to achieve the seemingly impossible. With a rich history in the world of sports and as a Worldwide Olympic Partner and the Official Chemistry Company of the Olympic Movement, Dow has also been inspired to challenge the status quo.
Through Dow’s carbon partnership with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the excitement, energy and challenge of sport is combined with groundbreaking science to generate real third-party verified climate benefits. To really push beyond business as usual, Dow is helping enable greenhouse gases (GHGs) reductions beyond the Olympic Games and host cities to some of the world’s highest output industries.
Alongside customers and key partners, Dow is bringing innovation and carbon expertise to tailored mitigation projects in building energy efficiency, packaging and recycling, and industrial applications.
To date, the cumulative GHG reductions from Dow’s three carbon programs, which include Sochi 2014, Rio 2016 and the IOC programs, have reached more than 5 million tonnes of CO2e. A new portfolio of similar projects is currently being developed by Dow to reflect its closer relationship with the International Olympic Committee (IOC). It’s a partnership that Dow estimates will help mitigate 6 million tonnes of carbon emissions by 2026. For example, multiple Dow solutions have been incorporated into the IOC’s new headquarters building — Olympic House — in Lausanne, Switzerland, to enhance its energy efficiency and sustainability. The IOC is seeking Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum certification in part because of Dow solutions such as energy-saving sealants, low-VOC (volatile organic compound) paints that remove formaldehyde from air in buildings, and a waterproof membrane for the green roof.
Dow is also working towards a successful application of end-of-life plastic in road construction. Value-added markets and applications for product re-use are essential in a circular economy. Dow continues to expand our geographic scope of projects demonstrating that new value for plastic waste can be created in road construction when asphalt roads are mixed with plastic waste. Road projects have been completed in India, Indonesia, Thailand, Mexico and the United States. Research conducted at Chulalongkorn University found that the asphalt-plastic roads are 15-33 percent more durable and lead to 6 percent higher skid resistance versus standard asphalt roads.
Goal 11: make cities sustainable
11.1) BY 2030, ENSURE ACCESS FOR ALL TO ADEQUATE, SAFE AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND BASIC SERVICES, AND UPGRADE SLUMS
In 2017, Dow celebrated its 35th year partnering with Habitat for Humanity International, becoming Habitat’s first national corporate partner in 1983 and expanding support internationally in 1993. Dow’s commitment to Habitat includes financial, product and volunteer contributions. That year in 2017, Dow supported 42 Habitat projects in 19 countries, committing more than $1.4 million and engaging more than 2,000 employee volunteers in building homes alongside future homeowners.
Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption & production
12.5) By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse
In 2020 Dow announced new sustainability targets:
- Stop the waste: “By 2030, Dow will enable 1 million metric tons of plastic to be collected, reused or recycled through its direct actions and partnerships.”
- Close the loop: “By 2035, Dow will close the loop by enabling 100% of Dow products sold into packaging applications to be reusable or recyclable.”
Dow is engaged in numerous initiatives to “close the loop” by delivering circular economy solutions. The company believes that plastic is too valuable to go to waste and thus should be part of a circular economy that redesigns, recycles, reuses and remanufactures to keep materials at their highest value use.
Dow showcases its commitment to “close the loop” by partnering with stakeholders such as Fuenix for the supply of a new feedstock made from recycled plastic waste, to produce new Dow polymers. They design products for recyclability and innovate recycling technologies to increase the amount of plastic recycled and reused worldwide.
The corporation is additionally working with industry peers, associations, governments, non-governmental organizations, brands, retailers and consumers to stop the waste and help stem the tide of plastic waste before it reaches our oceans. For instance, Dow actively works with the Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW) to reach the Alliance’s estimated goal of reducing plastic leakage by 45% by improving waste management and recycling in China, India, Indonesia, The Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand. Dow has committed more than $1 billion, with the goal of raising $1.5 billion over the next years, to develop and scale solutions that manage plastic waste.
Find out more about what Dow has done thus far in the enterprise’s 2020 progress report.
Goal 13: combat climate change
13.2) Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies and planning
Dow’s new sustainability targets include the following commitment towards a more ambitious approach on climate change:
- Protect the climate: “By 2030, Dow will reduce its net annual carbon emissions by 5 million metric tons versus its 2020 baseline (15% reduction). By 2050, Dow intends to be carbon neutral (Scopes 1+2+3 plus product benefits).”
Dow has a long tradition of seeking solutions for the energy and climate change challenges together with key participants collaboratively. These are some examples of the most relevant ones:
- MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change
- World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s REscale team
- Business Environmental Leadership Council from the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions
- The Gulf Coast Carbon Collaborative
- Low Carbon Emitting Technologies organized by the World Economic Forum
As both, a major user of energy and a producer of technologies that are essential to a lower-carbon economy, Dow is committed to working with its suppliers, customers and value chain partners to ensure that the company's ecosystem is carbon neutral by 2050.
Dow is committed to ensuring that its products are as sustainable as possible. In fact, Dow’s products lower customers’ emissions more than the carbon emissions that are used to produce them. In order to achieve this, Dow uses renewable energy to manufacture its products. In 2018, Dow launched Packaging and Performance Plastics, which is a renewable energy-made polyethylene in the U.S. that contributes 13.8% fewer greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per pound of product than the industry average polyethylene. This approach helps reduce Scope 3 emissions for customers, which are all indirect emissions that occur in the value chain of a company.
In addition, Dow and Reynolds Consumer Products initiated the Hefty® EnergyBag® program in 2014 to divert otherwise hard-to-recycle plastic from landfills to be converted into energy, fuels, or other feedstocks. The program is successfully operating in three U.S. regions (Omaha, Boise and Cobb County) and has reached 125,000 households, collected more than 536,000 bags and diverted 357 metric tons of waste from reaching landfills.
Dow’s projects, Plaquemine Operations Off-gas Regeneration of Purification Beds and St. Charles Site Hydrogen (H2) Optimization, reduced the enterprise’s carbon footprint by 145,000 tons of CO2, the equivalent of approximately 28,000 passenger vehicles driven for a year.
Moreover, Dow ensures its products’ sustainability by producing bio-based renewable feedstocks for its packaging applications. Dow has partnered with UPM BioFuels and is integrating wood-based UPM BioVerno renewable naphtha – a key raw material used to develop plastics – into its slate of raw materials, creating an alternative source for plastics production. Packaging made from this feedstock is fully recyclable. This production process significantly reduces CO2 emissions. The company’s entire supply chain is also International Sustainability & Carbon Certification (ISCC) certified, which means all steps meet criteria and reduce negative environmental impacts.
For more information on Dow’s efforts regarding renewable energy, click here.
Goal 14: conserve oceans
14.1) BY 2025, PREVENT AND SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCE MARINE POLLUTION OF ALL KINDS, IN PARTICULAR FROM LAND-BASED ACTIVITIES, INCLUDING MARINE DEBRIS AND NUTRIENT POLLUTION
Dow has collaborated with the Ocean Conservancy for more than 30 years to remove debris and pollutants from oceans and waterways. In 2012, Dow and the Ocean Conservancy joined hands to form the Trash Free Seas Alliance® to identify ways to stop land-based trash from ever reaching the ocean. In 2017, Dow developed a trash bag made from post-industrial plastic scrap, opening doors for new, previously difficult-to-recycle packaging formats to enter the recycling stream. The bags were used to clean up beaches around the United States during Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup in September of 2017. The following year, Dow joined several other major global brands in becoming a founding investor in Circulate Capital’s $100 million effort to incubate and finance companies and infrastructure that prevent waste in oceans.
In 2018, Dow announced its intention to further invest and develop new global initiatives and solutions that work to prevent and remediate plastic waste in the environment. The initiatives, announced in conjunction with the recent Our Ocean Conference in Bali, Indonesia, include Dow’s commitment to join several other major global brands to become a founding investor in Circulate Capital’s $100 million effort to incubate and finance companies and infrastructure that prevent waste in oceans. Dow also announced at the Conference that it intends to donate an additional $1 million to Ocean Conservancy over the next two years to support waste collection and recycling solutions in Southeast Asian countries. This money would be used for projects that build the capacity of local non-governmental organizations and partnerships with city leaders to develop, scale and replicate implementable solutions.