Dow Highlights Progress in Addressing Global Challenges in 2015 Sustainability Report

MIDLAND, Mich.

The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW) today released its 2015 Sustainability Report, culminating Dow’s decade-long 2015 Sustainability Goals, producing solutions to global challenges including the areas of food, water and energy and continuing its commitment to operational excellence. Prepared in accordance with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G4 Guidelines – the most widely used framework for sustainability reporting used globally by businesses, governments and other organizations – the report highlights the successes of Dow’s 2015 goals, and also outlines the Company’s 2025 Sustainability Goals and commitment to redefine the role of business at its intersection with society.

“Sustainability is an integral part of who we are as a Company and how we do business,” said Andrew N. Liveris, chairman and chief executive officer. “Dow is at the forefront of innovation, technology and science, which puts us in a unique position to help solve the problems facing the planet today. More than two decades into our sustainability journey, we continue to raise the bar not just for ourselves, but also for our industry and the global business community. ”

Overall, Dow’s 2015 goals resulted in significant, quantifiable improvements for the Company in personal safety, environmental performance and economic value creation. As Dow strives to continuously set the standard for sustainability, it renewed its commitment with the launch of Dow’s 2025 Sustainability Goals — the Company’s third set of 10-year goals. Dow’s 2025 Sustainability Goals serve as the next chapter in its sustainability journey and as such, the Company has assumed a leadership role in developing societal blueprints that integrate public policy solutions, science and technology, and value chain innovation to facilitate the transition to a more sustainable planet and society.

“Our 2015 Sustainability Goals focused on expanding our efforts into products and solutions that helped our customers and the world to save energy, grow better food, and create clean water supplies without losing sight of our operational footprint,” said Neil C. Hawkins, corporate vice president and chief sustainability officer. “Over the next decade, we will continue to reduce our own operational ‘footprint,’ deliver ever-increasing value to customers and society through our ‘handprint’ of products and solutions and develop and deliver ‘blueprints’ for a sustainable planet and society.”

The 2015 Sustainability Report includes Dow’s collective achievements for all the 2015 goals, including highlights aligned to the Breakthroughs for World Challenges goal and improvements to Dow’s operational performance.

• Energy:
  • BETAMATE™ Structural Adhesives are an enabling technology for dissimilar material assembly, which enables improved vehicle safety and durability while optimizing weight reduction. As a result, 23 million tons of CO2 emissions and 10 billion liters of gasoline have been saved since 1999.
• Food
  • Since 2005, Dow’s Omega-9 oils eliminated more than 1.5 million pounds of trans and saturated fat from the North American diet. Omega-9 oils address an important society need to improve the fat profile of popular foods and decrease the instances of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular and coronary disease.
• Water
  • Dow’s FILMTEC™ ECO Reverse Osmosis Elements deliver 40 percent better purification with 30 percent less energy than industry standard reverse osmosis, resulting in an ecologic and economic win.
  • LIFEBUOY™ Soap featuring POLYOX™ water-soluble polymers from Dow delivers a positive impact on health and hygiene and most importantly, helps save lives around the world. Created in partnership with Unilever, Dow’s technologies enable LIFEBUOY™ Soap to be longer lasting, more affordable, and easier to lather.
• Operational Excellence:
  • Since 2005, Dow achieved on average a 75 percent improvement in key indicators for Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S) and operational excellence, including:
    • 1,500 fewer injuries and illnesses;
    • 400 fewer process safety incidents; and
    • Added 545MW of clean power capacity.

The full 2015 Sustainability Report is available on Dow’s website.

About Dow

Dow (NYSE: DOW) combines the power of science and technology to passionately innovate what is essential to human progress. The Company is driving innovations that extract value from material, polymer, chemical and biological science to help address many of the world’s most challenging problems such as the need for clean water, clean energy generation and conservation, and increasing agricultural productivity. Dow’s integrated, market-driven, industry-leading portfolio of specialty chemical, advanced materials, agrosciences and plastics businesses delivers a broad range of technology-based products and solutions to customers in approximately 180 countries and in high-growth sectors such as packaging, electronics, water, coatings and agriculture. In 2015, Dow had annual sales of nearly $49 billion and employed approximately 49,500 people worldwide. The Company’s more than 6,000 product families are manufactured at 179 sites in 35 countries across the globe. References to “Dow” or the “Company” mean The Dow Chemical Company and its consolidated subsidiaries unless otherwise expressly noted. More information about Dow can be found at www.dow.com.

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The Dow Chemical Company
Sara Steele
202-429-3428
Smsteele@dow.com