Dow Chemical

Last edited by Charlie Cray on August 28, 2008 - 10:33am

Company Snapshot:

The Dow Chemical Company is the world’s second largest chemical company, behind only BASF. Dow’s primary industries are chemicals, herbicides, pesticides, agricultural sciences and plastics. Dow's main business is supplying chemicals to other industrial and chemical companies. Using oil, coals, natural gas, salt, brine and other basic inputs, Dow makes inorganic chemicals like soda, solvents, and chlorine, and organic chemicals like acetone, ethylene glycol, glycerine, phenols, etc. Dow is also the biggest plastics manufacturer in the world.

Dow is infamous for having been one of the big manufacturers of the dioxin-contaminated herbicide Agent Orange, a defoliant used in Vietnam. Dow acquired Union Carbide, the company responsible for the Bhopal, India disaster, in 2001. (For more details, see The International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal.)

Ownership status:

Publicly traded

Number of employees worldwide:

42,578

Chief executive officer:

Andrew N. Liveris

2008 Global Fortune 500 rank:

128

Website:

Dow

Tel:

800-258-2436

Fax:

989-832-1556

Corporate accountability

Accountability overview:

Dow is the world's largest manufacturer of chlorine. Environmental groups (esp. Greenpeace), and public health organizations (e.g. the American Public Health Association -- in APHA Policy Statement 9304), as well as the International Joint Commission on the Great Lakes have all called for a phase-out of industrial chlorine production and use. For a useful overview of the issue, see Joe Thornton, Pandora's Poison: Chlorine, Health and a New Environmental Strategy (MIT Press, 2000).

Over the years, Dow, its subsidiaries and affiliated companies have been criticized and scrutinized for producing a number of harmful and potentially harmful products, including napalm and Agent Orange, various pesticides, silicone breast implants, DBCP (a worm-killer used in banana plantations), styrofoam, vinyl chloride, bisphenol-A (BPA) and other chemicals used in plastics, and dioxin (a byproduct of processes involving chlorine, including incineration).

In early 2007, The Environmental Working Group exposed conflicts of interest at Sciences International (SI), an Alexandria, Virginia-based consulting firm that ran the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR). SI was also working for Dow, the manufacturer of Bisphenol A, a chemical that CERHR was about to review. Three months later, the contractor was dismissed by NIH.

It wasn't the first time Dow had been tied to scandalous interference with scientific evaluations of the chemical. A decade before, a representative from Dow offered to pay endocrinologist Fred vom Saal and his colleagues to postpone publishing the results of their research on the effects of BPA. ‘Can we arrive at a mutually beneficial outcome where you hold off publishing this study?’” vom Saal remembered later, with a laugh. Vom Saal said he and Welshons refused, and the study was published in the January 1997 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives, a National Institutes of Health journal. He and Welshons reported the visit from the Dow Chemical Company representative in a letter to the Food and Drug Administration, the MU chancellor and a number of media outlets. Before long, vom Saal was featured on PBS’ “Frontline” and ABC’s “20/20.”

Environment and product safety:

On Oct 30th the Dow Chemical Company announced a new program on Sustainable Products and Solutions based at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley in partnership of the Haas School and the College of Chemistry. UC Berkeley got a 2 Million Dollar gift from Dow to research sustainable chemicals. Additional corporate funding expected and it is directed by a Dow executive, Mr. Tony Kingsbury, who has moved from Midland, Michigan and now has an office at Haas. Mr. Kingsbury will serve as Executive Director of the program.

US PIRG identified Dow Chemical as one of twelve companies endangering the most people. A 2004 report entitled, “Dangerous Dozen: A Look at How 12 Chemical Companies Jeopardize Millions of Americans,” found that approximately 6.03 million people live in Dow Chemical’s “vulnerability zones.” The EPA defines the radius of a “vulnerability zone” as the greatest distance between “the point of release of a hazardous substance in which the airborne concentration could reach the level of concern under specified weather conditions.” People living within these zones have an increased risk of being affected by Dow Chemical’s production of phosgene, chlorine, and hydrocyanic acid. U.S. PIRG, 06/01/2004

US PIRG’s report “Irresponsible Care: the Failure of the Chemical Industry to Protect the Public from Chemical Accidents” questions the legitimacy of the American Chemistry Council (ACC) and its Responsible Care guidelines. US PIRG found that ACC members, one of which is Dow Chemical, averaged 5 chemical accidents a day. According to National Resource Center data on reported accidents, Dow had 2,562 accidents, between 1990 and 2003, the second highest of all companies included in the report. U.S. PIRG, 04/01/2004

A 2006 CERES report titled "Corporate Governance and Climate Change: Making the Connection," commissioned by Investor Responsibility Resource Center, details a comprehensive measurement of how 100 leading global companies are responding to global warming. Through an evaluation of board oversight, management performance, public disclosure, emissions accounting, and strategic performance, to address climate change, the companies were evaluated on a 0 to 100 scale. Dow scored a total of 59 points. CERES, 03/21/2006

In June of 2008 a U.S. federal judge ordered Dow to pay $653 million to residents who suffered health and property damage from the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant, which Dow had operated for the Department of Energy from the 1950s until 1975. The lawsuit found that Dow had mishandled radioactive waste and tried to cover it up.

In May of 2008, EPA Region V head Mary Gade resigned over a dispute with the agency's leadership over enforcement actions related to dioxin contamination below Dow's Michigan HQ's chemical manufacturing plant. Gade told the The Wall Street Journal, that senior agency officials told her to quit or be fired, adding that ordinary citizens "should be concerned" because "this may be some of the worst dioxin contamination" in the U.S. (Stephen Power, "EPA Regional Chief Resigns After Dispute," WSJ 5/3/08, page A4).

Human rights:

Dow is infamous for having been one of the big manufacturers of the dioxin-contaminated herbicide Agent Orange, a defoliant used in Vietnam.

Dow acquired Union Carbide, the company responsible for the Bhopal, India disaster, in 2001. (For more details, see The International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal)

Little Bhopals in all our bodies: According to Jack Doyle, author of Trespass Against Us: Dow Chemical & The Toxic Century, just about everyone in the world has been contaminated by dozens of synthetic chemicals found in our blood and body tissue -- including breast milk given to nursing children. At least 500 chemicals have been found in human blood and body tissue so far.

Chemical trespass is occurring daily, in all of us. But unlike a thief or person who trespasses on your property, chemical companies aren’t prosecuted or hauled off to jail. As Doyle sees it, "body burden chemicals made by the petrochemical industry are a transgression on the inherent human right to health. This is why we are trying to elevate chemical trespass and body burden in the popular literature."

Dow also manufactured and sold DBCP (dibromochloropropane), a worm-killing pesticide (nematodicide) used on banana trees in Central America. It sold the chemical under the brand name Fumazone. Dow sold the chemical to Occidental Chemical (Oxy), for its formulating plant in Lathrop, Californai. Workers at Oxy's Lathrop plant discovered that they were sterile, and filed compensation claims. A total of 57 DBCP workers filed lawsuits against Dow and toehr manufacturers. While most cases were settled, in early April 1983, a jury convicted Dow of failure to warn about the hazards of DBCP. In the 1990s, Dow and other DBCP producers began to face a variety of other lawsuits. The chemical was later found in over 200 wells and the wine of at least 16 wineries in California. Later hundreds of cases involving thousands of workers were filed in Nicaragua and other countries in Central America by banana workers exposed to DBCP.

In 2006, over 600 West African plantation workers http://www.toxictorts.com/crimes-against-humanity.shtml filed suit against Dow, Shell and other companies (Amvac and Dole Food Co.), alleging that the pesticide DBCP caused them to become sterile. The lawsuit was filed by Raphael Metzger in California under the Alien Tort Claims Act -- a federal law allowing foreigners to seek redress in U.S. federal courts.

Anti-competitive and consumer protection:

Dow's pharmaceutical subsidiary, Merrell-Dow, manufactured Bendectin, a morning sickness drug prescribed to pregnant mothers. By the 1980s, Bendectin was suspected of causing birth defects, and the company was facing hundreds of lawsuits. Dow quit selling the drug in 1983, citing the rising costs of lawsuits, but attorneys for the plaintiffs pointed out that Merrell-Dow had already been in intensive negotiations with FDA over the drug.

In the 1980s, Dow Chemical got into liability trouble with a product known as Sarabond, a mortar additive that allegedly weakened brick structures and corroded steel (rebar).

Political influence:

Dow is a member of the American Tort Reform Association, a corporate trade group created in 1986 to weaken the jury system and replace it with such policies as non-discretionary award caps, and binding arbitration.

Location(s)

Headquarters

2030 Dow Center

Midland, MI, 48674

United States

See map: Google Maps

History

Dow Chemical was founded by inventor Herbert Dow, who discovered numerous uses for brine-derived bleach and medicinal bromides in the 1890s. Dow developed the electrolytic "blowing out" process to produce ferric bromide from brine. The company relocated to Midland, Michigan (currently still its headquarters) in 1896. On May 1987, Dow Chemical Co. was formally incorporated for the first time. Two years later, Dow Chemical sold its first product: bleach.

Some key dates include:

1902: Dow introduces its bleach internationally. A price war ensues with British and German manufacturers.

1907 Dow family travels to England and Germany to investigate their bleach and bromine facilities.

1908 Dow begins to supply Eastman Kodak with carbon tetrachloride and chloroform

1910 Dow begins making agricultural chemicals.

1911 Dow begins paying dividends.

1915 Dow stops selling bleach. Now operating chlorine-caustic cells. Dow begins making phenols and other chemicals unavailable after WW I begins.

1917 More than 90 % of plant output goes to the war effort.

1918 Dow diamond-shaped logo introduced.

1919 "Dowmetal" magnesiam metal introduced, and is the focus of the company's first major ad campaign. (Dow closed its magnesium production operations in 1998).

1922 First commercial synthesis of phenol from chlorobenzene gives Dow a big lead in the U.S. phenol industry.

1928 Jones Chemical Co., the first Dow subsidiary, is established in Louisiana to extract iodine from brine. Petroleum cracking leads to the production of ethylene and products including styrene and Saran.

1933 A joint-venture with Ethyl Gas Co. is formed to extract bromine from sea water for ethylene dibromide production.

1927 Dow common stock introduced on NYSE. Dow polystyrene is introduced.

1943 Dow joins with Corning Glass Works to form Dow Corning, with objective of producing organosilicon compounds and materials. (Dow Corning later manufactures silicone implants). Dow's first agricultural product -- 2,4-D herbicide -- is added to its product line. The chemical is later incorporated into Agent Orange.

1944 Styrofoam brand plastic foam products are introduced.

1953 Saran Wrap brand plastic film, the company's first consumer product, is introduced. Seven years later the company introduces Handi-Wrap.

1964 Dow sales exceed $ 1 billion for the first time.

1972 Dow introduces Ziploc storage bags.

1974 Dow receives its 10,000th patent.

1979 With 55,000 employees, Dow sales top $9 billion, over half coming from outside the U.S. Dow produces over 2,000 products and pharmaceuticals. It is the seventh largest chemical company in the world in sales -- second in the U.S. Dow establishes a foundation to promote chemistry in U.S. high schools and colleges.

1981 Dow acquires Merrell pharmaceuticals.

1986 Dow becomes the world's largest producer of thermoplastics.

1988 DowBrands, formerly Dow Consumer Products Inc., announces the introduction of Simoniz floor care products and Dow bathroom cleaning product with Scrubbing Bubbles.

1989 Dow and Eli Lilly form Dow-Elanco agricultural products, based in Indianapolis.

1992 Dow Corning stops making silicone breast implants. Although the company was cleared of charges that the implants were put on the market without proper testing, the FDA banned the implants because Dow Corning and other manufacturers failed to prove they were safe. Two years later a U.S. district judge approves a $4.2 billion class action settlement -- the largest ever -- concluding most litigation between women and Dow Corning and other implant manufacturers.

1995 A ruling exempting Dow Chemical from breast implant litigation is overturned. Negotiations regarding breast implant litigation are reopened because initial claims exceed the settlement by $3 billion. Dow Corning files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. After a judge rules that breast implant lawsuits can proceed, Dow Chemical is found solely liable in a breast implant case by a state jury in Nevada. 13,000 cases remain unresolved.

1995 Dow Chemical signs and agreement to take over 80% of the giant Buna, Leuna and Bohlen petrochemical complexes in eastern Germany. Dow sells 71% of its stake in Marion Merrell Dow to Hoechst, for $7.1 billion.

2000 Dow and Union Carbide merge, making the company the second largest chemical company in the world, behind DuPont. Dow and Cargill jointly build the first commercial bioplastics production facility.

Throughout its history, Dow has never been a stranger to controversy, producing mustard gas for the government in World War I, napalm and Agent Orange in Vietnam, and becoming the world's largest producer of chlorine.

Financial information

Stock ticker symbol:

DOW

Total revenue:

$49.124 billion

Fiscal year:

2006

Net Income:

$3.724 Billion

Fiscal year:

2006

Major lines of business/segments:

Plastics, Chemicals, Agricultural Products (including pesticides and biotechnology), and "Services/Licensing" (including specialty chemicals, automotive materials including plastics and sealants, and pharmaceutical production processes)

Link to annual report:

Dow's 2007 Annual Report

Additional descriptive data

Link to full list of subsidiaries:

10-K Exh. 21 list of subsidiaries

Link to complete list of brands:

Dow Tradenames index

Investor website:

Investor Environmental Health Network