In celebration of World Water Day, The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: Dow) today launched a new digital platform to promote increased understanding of water use and expanded its work to implement clean water technologies around the globe. The United Nations has designated World Water Day 2013 as the International Day of Water Cooperation, and Dow is addressing water challenges and promoting cooperation worldwide in alignment with the Company’s 2015 Sustainability Goals, which include environmental protection and creating breakthroughs to global challenges such as clean water access.

“Improving access to clean water requires international cooperation and a better understanding of where and how we can manage distribution with increased efficiency,” said Neil Hawkins, vice president, Global EH&S and Sustainability at Dow. “Dow is advancing filtration technology and working with customers, NGOs and governments around the world to identify risks and opportunities that will result in securing more clean water for more people.”

Dow’s new interactive web tool, H₂OME, illuminates everyday items that represent the output of Earth’s natural resources and the collective efforts of a cast of millions. From the intense amount of water used to mine copper for pots and pans, to the ultrapure water needed to ensure powerful electronics, this educational tool shows the underlying challenges and progress of water, and why global water cooperation is critical.

Smart Solutions

Dow’s commitment to advancing smart water solutions includes reducing the cost of water reuse and desalination by 50 percent through advances in its membrane and component technology:

• Today, Dow announces a collaboration with Ahlstrom, a high-performance fiber-based materials company to incorporate its high-performance, break-through filter medium into a new set of Dow drinking water purification products that provide excellent pathogen rejection while operating at high flow and low pressure. “Global trends such as population growth and urbanization put pressure on already strained water sources,” said Snehal Desai, global business director for DW&PS. “We see a real need for new innovations to expand access to clean safe drinking water in an easy, effective and sustainable way.”
• Through its skills-based volunteerism program, Dow Sustainability Corps, Dow information technology department employees are developing a sustainable solution for Aqua Clara International (ACI) to design and guide the implementation of a new comprehensive data base system for tracking activities in building, maintaining, and monitoring ACI’s water purification technologies, and tracking water quality and health/behavior outcomes in Africa and Nicaragua. ACI’s flagship product is the Aqua Clara Water Purifier, a highly efficient and inexpensive bio-sand purifier which produces safe and affordable drinking water.

Partners for Change

Dow promotes international water cooperation through strategic partnerships that address water access issues and shortages:

• In collaboration with Safewater Team, a pilot implementation program to install Hydraid™ BioSand filters will take place in Ghana to demonstrate their effectiveness in producing safe drinking water while educating communities on the value of safe water, sanitation, and hygiene. To date, Safewater Team has created Hydraid distribution centers in Honduras, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and Ghana.
• Through its collaboration with The Nature Conservancy (TNC), Dow is identifying cost-competitive ways to address freshwater supply disruption in Texas’ Brazos River Basin, where permitted water demand currently exceeds supply 10-20 percent of the year. Collaboration experts recently evaluated wastewater reuse opportunities, land management strategies, technology upgrades and policy incentives.
• Dow partnered with The World Resources Institute to develop the Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas, an online tool that allows global evaluation of water stress risks to facilitate coordinated water security planning.

Responsible Operations

• At Dow’s Terneuzen facility in The Netherlands, a process improvement saving 10,000 cubic meters of water every day, and lowering carbon dioxide emissions by 60,000 tons per year, has won multiple awards, including the Environmental Award of the Province of Zeeland in 2007 and the ICIS Award for the most innovative Corporate Social Responsibility project of 2008.
• In Freeport, Texas, the Company collaborated with the City of Lake Jackson to divert waste water effluent leaving the city’s waste water treatment plant to Dow's raw fresh water canal. The water is then treated and used in Dow's operations. Every 40 days of diverting and recycling this effluent when Dow is purchasing water reduces the need to purchase water by one day. The project is expected to save Dow an estimated $20 million over 10 years.

About Dow

Dow (NYSE: DOW) combines the power of science and technology to passionately innovate what is essential to human progress. The Company connects chemistry and innovation with the principles of sustainability to help address many of the world's most challenging problems such as the need for clean water, renewable energy generation and conservation, and increasing agricultural productivity. Dow's diversified 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 160 countries and in high growth sectors such as electronics, water, energy, coatings and agriculture. In 2012, Dow had annual sales of approximately $57 billion and employed approximately 54,000 people worldwide. The Company's more than 5,000 products are manufactured at 188 sites in 36 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.

OLD - Dow Chemical Company

OLD - Dow Chemical Company

With annual sales of $54 billion and 46,000 employees worldwide, Dow is a diversified chemical company that combines the power of science and technology with the "Human Element" to constantly improve what is essential to human progress. The Company delivers a broad range of products and services to customers in around 160 countries, connecting chemistry and innovation with the principles of sustainability to help provide everything from fresh water, food and pharmaceuticals to paints, packaging and personal care products. References to "Dow" or the "Company" mean The Dow Chemical Company and its consolidated subsidiaries unless otherwise expressly noted.