Dow Chemical: Can Alternatives to Oil Green the Bottom Line?
How does a company like Dow Chemical, with a reputation attached to chemicals like napalm and DBCP (which made workers sterile), find itself in the green biz? Well according to Neil Hawkins, the company’s VP of sustainability, it’s by no means an act of philanthropy. Hawkins, who delivered his remarks to an audience at the Dow Jones Environmental Ventures conference in San Mateo on Tuesday, also offered up a basic outline of how Dow is investing hundreds of millions of dollars into more eco-friendly chemistry innovations that can provide cleaner drinking water technology, petroleum plastic alternatives, and alternative energy-generation technology. But a quick look at its latest quarterly numbers paints a clearer picture of Dow’s motivation: According to the New York Times, the company saw the single largest increase in raw materials and energy costs in the company’s history. Dow uses crude oil and natural gas as feedstocks to produce chemicals and plastics, and the costs contributed t
