DOW INC
For the period ended Dec 31, 2024. Filed Feb 4, 2025.
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FY2024 · Filed Feb 4, 2025
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Environmental Matters
Environmental Policies
Dow is committed to world-class environmental, health and safety (“EH&S”) performance, as demonstrated by industry-leading results, a long-standing commitment to the American Chemistry Council's Responsible Care® program, a strong commitment to achieve the Company's 2025 Sustainability Goals and Dow's drive to deliver against its targets around a circular economy and climate protection. These goals and targets set the standard for sustainability in the chemical industry, focusing on improvements in the Company’s local corporate citizenship and product stewardship, and by actively pursuing methods to reduce the Company's environmental impact.
To meet the Company’s public commitments, as well as the stringent laws and government regulations related to environmental protection and remediation to which its global operations are subject, the Company has well-defined policies, requirements and management systems. The Company's EH&S Management System (“EMS”) defines the “who, what, when and how” needed for the businesses to implement the Company’s policies and requirements and meet performance objectives, leadership expectations and public commitments. To ensure effective utilization, the EMS is integrated into a company-wide management system for EH&S, Operations, Quality and Human Resources.
The Company believes third-party verification and transparent public reporting are cornerstones of world-class EH&S performance and building public trust. Numerous Dow sites in EMEAI, Latin America, Asia Pacific and the U.S. & Canada have received third-party verification of the Company’s compliance with Responsible Care® and with outside specifications such as ISO-14001. The Company continues to be a global champion of Responsible Care® and has worked to broaden the application and impact of Responsible Care® around the world through engagement with peer companies, suppliers, customers and joint venture partners.
Dow manages environmental data for reporting with a waste, water and emissions inventory system. All emitting manufacturing sites globally record their emissions and water use in the system. The data is reviewed at the facility level and then by global coordinators before being aggregated for corporate environmental reporting purposes.
Dow's EH&S policies help to ensure the Company achieves its annual health and safety performance targets and the Company seeks to continuously improve on these targets through process and personal safety project implementations. Improvement in these areas, as well as environmental compliance, remains a top management priority, as the Company continues to implement its 2025 Sustainability Goals and progressive, multi-decade sustainability targets that include advancing a circular economy and climate protection. Progress is reviewed annually by management and with the Environment, Health, Safety & Technology ("EHS&T") Committee of the Board.
Detailed information on Dow’s performance regarding environmental matters and goals is accessible through the Company's Science & Sustainability webpage atwww.dow.com/sustainability. Dow's website and its content are not deemed incorporated by reference into this report.
Chemical Security
Public and political attention continues to be placed on the protection of critical infrastructure, including the chemical industry, from security threats. Sabotage, terrorism, war, natural disasters and cybersecurity incidents have increased global concerns about the security and safety of chemical production and distribution. Many, including the Company and the American Chemistry Council, have called for uniform risk-based and performance-based national standards for securing the U.S. chemical industry. The Company is subject to U.S. regulations with established risk-based and performance-based standards that must be met at U.S. Coast Guard-regulated facilities promulgated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The Company is also subject to the requirements of the Rail Transportation Security Rule issued by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration. The Company continues to support uniform risk-based national standards for securing the chemical industry.
The Company maintains a comprehensive, multi-level security plan that focuses on security, emergency planning, preparedness and response. This plan, which has been activated in response to significant world and national events, is reviewed on an annual basis. The Company continues to improve its security plans, placing emphasis on the safety of Dow communities and people by being prepared to meet risks at any level and to address both internal and external identifiable risks. The security plan includes regular vulnerability assessments, security audits, mitigation efforts and physical security upgrades designed to reduce vulnerability. The Company’s security plans are also designed to avert interruptions of normal business operations that could materially and adversely affect the Company’s results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.
The Company played a key role in the development and implementation of the American Chemistry Council’s Responsible Care® Security Code ("Security Code"), which requires that all aspects of security – including facility, transportation and cyberspace – be assessed and gaps addressed. Through the global implementation of the Security Code, the Company has permanently heightened the level of security – not just in the United States, but worldwide. The Company employs several hundred employees and contractors in its Emergency Services and Security department worldwide. In 2019, the Company established its Global Security Operations Center ("GSOC") to provide 24-hour/day, 365-day/year real-time monitoring of global risks to Dow assets and people. The GSOC employs state-of-the-art social media monitoring, threat reporting and geo-fencing capabilities to analyze global risks and report those risks, facilitating decision-making and actions to prevent Dow crises.
Through the implementation of the Security Code, including voluntary security enhancements and upgrades, the Company is well-positioned to comply with U.S. chemical facility regulations and other regulatory security frameworks. The Company participates with the American Chemistry Council to periodically review and update the Security Code.
The Company continues to work collaboratively across the supply chain on Responsible Care®, supply chain design, emergency preparedness, shipment visibility and transportation of hazardous materials. The Company cooperated with public and private entities to lead the implementation of advanced tank car design, and track and trace technologies. Further, the Company’s Distribution Risk Review process addresses potential threats in all modes of transportation across the Company’s supply chain. To reduce vulnerabilities, the Company maintains security measures that meet or exceed regulatory and industry security standards in all areas in which they operate.
The Company's initiatives relative to chemical security, emergency preparedness and response, Community Awareness and Emergency Response and crisis management are implemented consistently at all Dow sites on a global basis. Each Dow site has established outreach programs designed to engage community stakeholders with objectives centered around awareness of Dow operations, products, and efforts to protect worker and community health and the environment. These programs also educate community members on emergency planning and response, emissions and waste, future site plans to reduce waste and emissions, and process safety systems. Finally, these outreach efforts establish an opportunity for Dow site leaders to hear about community stakeholder expectations and address questions and concerns about safety, health, environmental or other issues. The Company participates with chemical associations globally and participates as an active member of the Global Congress on Chemical Security and Emerging Threats and in positions of leadership in the U.S. Chemical Sector Coordinating Council.
Climate Protection
Evaluation of climate-related risks and opportunities continues to be a catalyst for the development of the Company’s Decarbonize & Grow strategy (Dow’s climate transition plan), its broad water stewardship efforts and its new nature goal. Dow's science-based strategy includes a phased approach to decarbonize while meeting the growing demand for Dow's products and contributing to a low-emissions future through continued investment in new products, technologies and processes.
In 2020, Dow set a target to be carbon neutral by 2050 across Scopes 1, 2 and 3, as defined by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard, plus product benefits. Dow’s Protect the Climate goals include reducing net annual GHG emissions by 5 million metric tons by 2030 versus its 2020 baseline, representing approximately a 15 percent reduction versus 2020 and a nearly 30 percent reduction since 2005. In 2021, Dow outlined a path to decarbonize its production processes (Scope 1 and 2 CO 2 e emissions), utilizing a phased approach in which end-of-life capacity is replaced with higher-efficiency, lower GHG emitting assets. In 2024, Dow continued near-term progression in its Decarbonize & Grow strategy by starting construction of its Fort Saskatchewan Path2Zero project which will be the world’s first net-zero Scope 1 and 2 emissions ethylene complex, when completed, and will decarbonize approximately 20 percent of Dow’s global ethylene production capacity. Dow also continued to advance a project with X-energy, a nuclear energy innovation company, to commercialize an advanced small modular nuclear reactor that will generate GHG emissions-free process heat and energy at its site in Seadrift, Texas. In the near term, energy reduction and optimization projects will provide continuous progress toward Dow’s carbon-neutral ambitions.
Dow is also committed to advancing water stewardship within the Company's operations and supply chain and with downstream customers and to working collaboratively to enhance water management at the watershed level. In addition to Dow's target to reduce freshwater intake intensity at six key water-stressed sites by 20 percent from its 2015 baseline by the end of 2025, Dow announced in 2024 a robust new 2050 water resilience strategy as well as a 50,000 acre habitat conservation target to address these key elements of climate adaptation.
Despite these commitments, climate change-related risks and uncertainties, legal or regulatory responses to climate change, and failure to meet climate change commitments could negatively impact Dow’s results of operations, financial condition and/or reputation. Climate-related risks include both physical and transition risks.
Physical Risks
Climate-related physical risks include more frequent severe weather events, potential changes in precipitation patterns, water scarcity and extreme variability in weather patterns, which can disrupt the operations of the Company as well as those of its customers, partners and vendors.
To evaluate physical risks, Dow partnered with S&P Global Trucost (“Trucost”) to assess the Company’s exposure to physical risks based on the geographic location of its manufacturing operations. The risks assessed included water stress, flood, heat waves, cold waves, hurricanes, wildfires and sea level rise. The analysis included an assessment of the physical risks using a baseline year of 2020 with time periods for medium- (year 2030) and long-term (year 2050) using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change representative concentration pathways. These pathways represent varying degrees of global atmospheric GHG concentrations (low, medium and high), and thus different expectations on global temperature rise. Results will be incorporated into Dow’s long-term assessments of its manufacturing sites, which is a key input into Dow’s capital approval process.
Transition Risks
Climate-related transition risks include the availability, development and affordability of lower GHG emissions technology, the effects of CO 2 e pricing, and changes in public sentiment, regulations, taxes, public mandates or requirements as they relate to CO 2 e, water or land use.
Climate-related risks, including both physical and transition risks, are assessed with input from internal and external sources including corporate, business, function and geographic leaders; subject matter experts; investors; and other stakeholders. The evaluation of climate-related risks and opportunities is integrated into an annual company-wide risk management process, known as enterprise risk management (“ERM”). ERM identifies significant or major risks to the Company and develops action plans to modify or mitigate risks.
Every few years, Dow also utilizes a robust scenario analysis to assess the long-term materiality and impact of climate-related risks and opportunities. Scenario analysis is used to challenge business-as-usual assumptions and strengthen the resiliency of the Company’s Decarbonize & Grow strategy. Scenarios are used to evaluate both physical and transition risk and are particularly useful in evaluating the potential and impact of emerging risks.
Managing Climate Risks
Management of climate risk is assigned to Dow’s Climate Steering Team (“CST”), which is accountable for developing and implementing plans to mitigate risk and for tracking actions and progress against those plans. With oversight and accountability by the CST, specific carbon-related risks are managed by Dow’s Climate Program Management Office (“PMO”). The PMO partners with subject matter experts to develop and implement strategies to mitigate or eliminate climate-related risks. The team develops specific action plans and ensures owners are assigned to drive forward progress in order to reduce Dow’s risk exposure. Risk mitigation status updates are provided to executive leaders on a regular basis and discussions include risk time horizons and/or magnitude of impact to confirm that the strategy remains solid.
Decarbonize & Grow
Dow’s Decarbonize & Grow strategy involves specific actions to mitigate identified climate-related physical and transition risks, while also advancing opportunities in several key areas. These include:
Optimizing Manufacturing Facilities and Processes for Sustainability: In addition to implementing near-term growth and efficiency investments, Dow is phasing out inefficient assets, decarbonizing remaining assets and building best-in-class, net-zero assets, as well as investing in innovative technologies such as clean hydrogen, advanced nuclear and carbon capture and storage. Dow has committed to investing approximately $1 billion in annual capital across the economic cycle to decarbonize assets in a phased approach, while growing capacity.
Increasing Use of Clean Energy and Steam: As a major user and producer of energy, Dow is committed to reducing the use of fossil fuels for energy production and increasing consumption of clean energy, including both renewable and net-zero-emissions sources.
Developing Low-Emissions Products, Technologies and Services: As a leading materials science company, Dow products are capable of making important contributions to the reduction of GHG emissions, including products that facilitate energy efficiency, lightweighting, fuel transition, circularity, increased operational efficiency and resource reductions.
Developing Next Generation, Low-Carbon Manufacturing Technologies: Dow is investing in longer-term, future-focused manufacturing technologies that will be critical in the decarbonization of the Company's manufacturing.
Building a Value-Generating Scope 3 Decarbonization Pathway: Approximately 70 percent of Dow’s emissions footprint fall into Scope 3 categories and more than half of those emissions derive from the raw materials, transportation and other services purchased as a company. Dow is actively validating and developing Scope 3 emissions reduction and mitigation efforts. Collaboration with the Company’s partners along the entire value chain is key to lowering Scope 3 carbon emissions.
Water Stewardship
Water is Dow’s largest dependency on nature. Water-related risk considers water availability (too much, too little), water quality (intake and effluents), access to safe drinking water, health of ecosystems and reputational and regulatory challenges. Dow’s approach to identifying water-related risks and impacts includes identification of physical, regulatory and reputational risks. Dow’s methodology uses scientifically robust external tools such as WRI Aqueduct and the World Wildlife Fund water risk filter tool. Dow’s actions are also informed by the Trucost physical risk assessment, wherein water scarcity is recognized and addressed as the biggest climate-related threat to corporate assets with potential substantive financial or strategic impact on business.
Dow’s water risk management approach recognizes that every site and every business is accountable for water and certain watersheds require additional measures to address specific water stress challenges. Many Dow locations have specific water action plans to address local challenges, and Dow's new water strategy calls for water stewardship plans at its 20 water-dependent sites by 2030 and for all manufacturing sites by 2035. These action plans include mitigations for local water scarcity or quality issues and consider the needs of other local users for freshwater. Additionally, in 2015 Dow identified six sites, located in Texas (2); Bahia Blanca, Argentina; Terneuzen, The Netherlands; Böhlen, Germany; and Tarragona, Spain; where its operations are located in a water-stressed watershed, have local water quality issues, have competition among local users for water, or have some local knowledge of watershed challenges, and these six sites have since been the focus of Company actions. In 2024, the Company secured the use of a reservoir asset at one of its main U.S. Gulf Coast manufacturing sites, with a 35-year contract period that is expected to commence upon completion of construction in 2028.
In addition to site water stewardship efforts, Dow will work with suppliers to understand and mitigate water and biodiversity impacts and dependencies in its supply chain and will continue to innovate products that enable society to have reduced impacts on water bodies and other ecosystems.
Accountability for operational water stewardship begins at the site level where the operating permits exist. The Company's progress against its broader water and nature targets is reviewed regularly by management and with the EHS&T Committee of the Board.
Advancing a Circular Economy
Since Dow is only one part of the materials ecosystem, Dow advocates for the adoption of policies to accelerate the broader pathway to circularity. Circularity-enabling policies such as recycling mandates; mandates for recycled content in products; extended producer responsibility systems to finance state-of-the-art local access to collection, sorting and recycling; and policies to incentivize investments in innovative circular technologies are all critical to ensure that post-use products are diverted away from landfilling, incineration, open dumps and open burning and instead enter the circular economy. To accelerate the materials ecosystem, Dow is working toward its Transform the Waste target collectively with partners. The goal is to boost recycling rates for materials by developing the associated ecosystems to increase collection, sorting and recycling. As part of Dow’s sustainability targets, Dow intends to transform waste and alternative feedstocks to commercialize 3 million metric tons per year of circular and renewable solutions by 2030.
Although the volume base is fairly small today, circular products are seeing increasing promise with commercially attractive growth rates, and Dow expects this market to gain an increasingly larger market share over the coming decades, as supporting policies, technology and economics improve. Dow is partnering to build industrial ecosystems to collect, reuse or recycle waste and expand its portfolio to meet rapidly growing demand for circular solutions. Further, Dow is redesigning product formulations in order to use circular feedstocks such as waste and renewable materials, thereby reducing the reliance on virgin fossil feedstocks.
A circular economy requires embedding circularity in all parts of the value chains downstream from Dow. This includes product design for recyclability, accessible collection, sorting and recycling facilities, and appropriate economic incentives to make recycling economically viable. Through innovative developments, combined with partnerships and value chain collaboration, Dow is assisting its customers to design downstream applications for recyclability.
Developing Safer Materials
Chemistry-based products provide many benefits to society. Like any product, they must be managed responsibly to minimize any potential adverse effects on humans or the environment. Dow takes this responsibility seriously and works hard to ensure that its products are designed, stored, transported, used, disposed of, or recycled in a manner that shows high regard for human health, safety and environmental stewardship.
Dow utilizes the Company’s strong innovation pipeline to develop safer materials or reduce or eliminate priority substances in its products. Dow also invests in clean upstream manufacturing technologies to reduce facility emissions and, where necessary, restricts downstream uses of some substances.
At Dow, material safety is a continuous journey made possible through innovation, design and more predictive, enabling technologies. Dow works to offer products that – if used properly and in the manner intended – pose low risk to the environment, health and safety, and seeks to optimize products so they use resources more efficiently and sustainably.
Dow is working to deliver a sustainable future through its materials science expertise and collaboration with its customers. By constantly innovating how it sources, manufactures and delivers material solutions, Dow helps customers achieve their goals and create a better tomorrow. Dow also transparently communicates information on substances to customers via safety data sheets, regulatory data sheets and, in some cases, product handling guides.
Dow is committed to demonstrating the value of chemistry and materials science to society and improving the way the world understands and considers science in decision-making to maximize benefits to businesses, society and the planet. Through Dow’s 2025 Safe Materials for a Sustainable Planet goal, the Company has made progress toward this vision by innovating sustainable materials of tomorrow, leading candid conversations about product safety and committing to the advancement of open and transparent chemistry with value chain partners, customers and the public.
Environmental Remediation
For comparison of environmental remediation-related matters for the fiscal years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, see Part II, Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations of the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023, filed with the SEC on January 31, 2024.
The Company accrues the costs of remediation of its facilities and formerly owned facilities based on current law and regulatory requirements. The nature of such remediation can include management of soil and groundwater contamination. The accounting policies adopted to properly reflect the monetary impacts of environmental matters are discussed in Note 1 to the Consolidated Financial Statements. To assess the impact on the financial statements, environmental experts review currently available facts to evaluate the probability and scope of potential liabilities. Inherent uncertainties exist in such evaluations primarily due to unknown environmental conditions, changing governmental regulations and legal standards regarding liability, and the ability to apply remediation technologies. These liabilities are adjusted periodically as remediation efforts progress or as additional technical or legal information becomes available. The Company had an accrued liability of $879 million at December 31, 2024, related to the remediation of current or former Dow-owned sites. At December 31, 2023, the liability related to remediation was $939 million.
In addition to current and former Dow-owned sites, under the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act ("CERCLA") and equivalent state laws (hereafter referred to collectively as "Superfund Law"), the Company is liable for remediation of other hazardous waste sites where the Company allegedly disposed of, or arranged for the treatment or disposal of, hazardous substances. Because Superfund Law imposes joint and several liability upon each party at a site, the Company has evaluated its potential liability in light of the number of other companies that have also been named potentially responsible parties (“PRPs”) at each site, the estimated apportionment of costs among all PRPs, and the financial ability and commitment of each to pay its expected share. The Company’s remaining liability for the remediation of Superfund sites was $234 million at December 31, 2024 ($241 million at December 31, 2023). The Company has not recorded any third-party recovery related to these sites as a receivable.
Information regarding environmental sites is provided below:
| Environmental Sites | Dow-owned Sites 1 | Superfund Sites 2 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 2023 | 2024 | 2023 | |
| Number of sites at Jan 1 | 154 | 171 | 133 | 130 |
| Sites added during year | 2 | 6 | 1 | 4 |
| Sites closed during year | — | (23) | (3) | (1) |
| Number of sites at Dec 31 | 156 | 154 | 131 | 133 |
Dow-owned sites are sites currently or formerly owned by the Company. In the United States, remediation obligations are imposed by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act or analogous state law. At December 31, 2024, 25 of these sites (24 sites at December 31, 2023) were formerly owned by Dowell Schlumberger, Inc., a group of companies in which the Company previously owned a 50 percent interest. The Company sold its interest in Dowell Schlumberger in 1992.
Superfund sites are sites, including sites not owned by the Company, where remediation obligations are imposed by Superfund Law.
Additional information is provided below for the Company’s Midland, Michigan, manufacturing site and Midland off-site locations (collectively, the "Midland sites"), as well as a Superfund site in Wood-Ridge, New Jersey, the locations for which the Company has the largest potential environmental liabilities.
In the early days of operations at the Midland manufacturing site, wastes were usually disposed of on-site, resulting in soil and groundwater contamination, which has been contained and managed on-site under a series of Resource Conservation and Recovery Act permits and regulatory agreements. The Hazardous Waste Operating License for the Midland manufacturing site, issued in 2003, and renewed and replaced in September 2015, also included provisions for the Company to conduct an investigation to determine the nature and extent of off-site contamination from historic Midland manufacturing site operations. In January 2010, the Company, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") and the State of Michigan ("State") entered into an Administrative Order on Consent that requires the Company to conduct a remedial investigation, a feasibility study and a remedial design for the Tittabawassee River, the Saginaw River and the Saginaw Bay, and pay the oversight costs of the EPA and the State under the authority of CERCLA. See Note 15 to the Consolidated Financial Statements for further information relating to Midland off-site environmental matters.
Rohm and Haas, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company, is a PRP at the Wood-Ridge, New Jersey, Ventron/Velsicol Superfund Site, and the adjacent Berry’s Creek Study Area ("BCSA") (collectively, the "Wood-Ridge sites"). Rohm and Haas is a successor in interest to a company that owned and operated a mercury processing facility, where wastewater and waste handling resulted in contamination of soils and adjacent creek sediments. In 2018, the Berry’s Creek Study Area Potentially Responsible Party Group (“PRP Group”), consisting of over 100 PRPs, completed a Remedial Investigation/Feasibility Study for the BCSA. During that time, the EPA concluded that an “iterative or adaptive approach” was appropriate for cleaning up the BCSA. Thus, each phase of remediation will be followed by a period of monitoring to assess its effectiveness and determine if there is a need for more work. In September 2018, the EPA signed a Record of Decision ("ROD 1") which describes the initial phase of the EPA’s plan to clean-up the BCSA. ROD 1 will remediate waterways and major tributaries in the most contaminated part of the BCSA. The PRP Group has signed agreements with the EPA to design the selected remedy. Although there is currently much uncertainty as to what will ultimately be required to remediate the BCSA and Rohm and Haas's share of these costs has yet to be determined, the range of activities that are required in the interim Record of Decision is known in general terms. The PRP Group has been approached by the EPA to convene discussions for the Remedial Action Consent Decree the EPA is preparing for the Berry’s Creek Site. The group submitted the 95 percent design for EPA review and has identified and contracted with a Remedial Action contractor to support completion of the 100 percent design. Allocation remains incomplete.
At December 31, 2024, the Company had accrued liabilities totaling $303 million ($319 million at December 31, 2023) for environmental remediation at the Midland and Wood-Ridge sites. In 2024, the Company spent $45 million ($48 million in 2023) for environmental remediation at the Midland and Wood-Ridge sites.
In total, the Company’s accrued liability for probable environmental remediation and restoration costs was $1,113 million at December 31, 2024, compared with $1,180 million at December 31, 2023. This is management’s best estimate of the costs for remediation and restoration with respect to environmental matters for which the Company has accrued liabilities, although it is reasonably possible that the ultimate cost with respect to these particular matters could range up to approximately two times that amount. Consequently, it is reasonably possible that environmental remediation and restoration costs in excess of amounts accrued could have a material impact on the Company’s results of operations, financial condition and cash flows. It is the opinion of the Company’s management, however, that the possibility is remote that costs in excess of the range disclosed will have a material impact on the Company’s results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.
The amounts charged to income on a pretax basis related to environmental remediation totaled $197 million in 2024 and $203 million in 2023. The amounts charged to income on a pretax basis related to operating the Company's current pollution abatement facilities, excluding internal recharges, totaled $823 million in 2024 and $758 million in 2023. Capital expenditures for environmental protection were $208 million in 2024 and $228 million in 2023.
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