The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW TYO: 4850) is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan. As of 2007, it is the second largest chemical manufacturer in the world (after BASF). in that most of their product is sold to other manufacturers rather than to end users. Dow had periods of selling into the Human and Animal Health markets as well as into the Consumer Products market (the latter most visible with Saran Wrap), but all of these facilities have been sold over the years.
Dow Chemical is an active member of the American Chemistry Council, and an active partner in different programs and initiatives in both the World Bank and United Nations.

Products
Performance Plastics make up 25% of Dow's sales range of resins and films is based on polyvinylidene chloride (PVDC).

Performance plastics
The Performance Chemicals (17% of sales) segment produces materials for water purification, pharmaceuticals, paper coatings, paints and advanced electronics. Major product lines include nitroparaffins such as nitromethane, used in the pharmaceutical industry and manufactured by ANGUS Chemical Company polyethylene glycols. Specialty chemicals are used as starting materials for production of agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals.

Performance chemicals
Agricultural Sciences (Dow AgroSciences) provides 7% of sales, and are responsible for a range of insecticide s (such as Lorsban), herbicides and fungicides. Genetically modified plant seeds are also an important, growing area. Dow AgroSciences sells seeds comercially under the following brands: Mycogen (grain corn, silage corn, sunflowers, alfalfa, and sorghum, Atlas (soybean) and PhytoGen (cotton).

Agricultural sciences
Basic plastics (26% of sales) end up in everything from diaper liners to beverage bottles and oil tanks. Products are based on the three major polyolefins – polystyrene (such as Styron resins), polyethylene and polypropylene.

Basic plastics
Basic chemicals (12% of sales) are used internally by Dow as raw materials, and are also sold worldwide. Markets include dry cleaning, paints and coatings, snow and ice control and the food industry. Major products include ethylene glycol, caustic soda, chlorine, vinyl chloride monomer (VCM, for making PVC) and calcium chloride. Ethylene oxide (EO) and propylene oxide and the derived alcohols ethylene glycol and propylene glycol are major feedstocks for the manufacture of plastics such as polyurethane and PET.

Basic chemicals
The Hydrocarbons and Energy operating segment (13% of sales) oversees energy management at Dow, succeeding in raising energy efficiency by 92% since 1990. Fuels and oil-based raw materials are also procured. Major feedstocks for Dow are provided by this group, including ethylene, propylene, 1,3-butadiene, benzene and styrene.

Hydrocarbons and energy
Early history
The company originally sold only bleach and potassium bromide, achieving a daily bleach output of 72 tons a day in 1902. Early in the company's existence, a group of British manufacturers attempted to drive Dow out of the bleach business by cutting prices. Dow survived by cutting prices in response and, although losing about $90,000 in income, began to diversify its product line.

It will shut down all of its production in Sarnia, Ontario by the end of 2008. Sarnia had been Dow's first manufacturing site in Canada. In 1942, the Canadian government invited Dow to build a plant there to produce styrene (an essential raw material used to make synthetic rubber for World War II). Dow then built a polystyrene plant in 1947. Up to the early 1990s, the Chemical Valley site contained numerous plants, while Dow Canada's headquarters were located at the Modeland Centre, and a new River Centre complex was opened which housed Research and Development. Since then, several plants on the site have been dismantled and Dow Canada headquarters were moved to Calgary, Alberta, while the Dow Fitness Centre was donated to YMCA of Sarnia-Lambton, and the Modeland Centre was sold to Lambton County and the City of Sarnia. In 2000, Sarnia Site was the location of a pilot plant for ethylene-styrene interpolymer (ESI) but ending up production never progressed and the project was ended. In 2002, the old steam plant was demolished and land on the site was sold to TransAlta which built a new natural gas power plant. As of 2003, the remaining plants on the site produce Polystyrene, Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE), Epoxy Resins, Polyols (Propylene Oxide Derivatives), and Latexes.[6]
One plant (Dow terminology for a production unit) at its site in Porto Marghera (Venice), Italy, which had been shut down for planned maintenance earlier that month, will not be restarted.
Two plants at its major site in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta were to be shut down by the end of October 2006. History
Based on year 2000 data,

Environmental Record

Main article: Bhopal disaster Dioxins in Michigan
Chlorpyrifos, marketed by Dow as Dursban, is well known as a home and garden insecticide, and until 2000 it was one of the most widely used household pesticide in the US. The pesticide is also a nerve toxin and suspected endocrine disruptor and has been associated with carcinogenicity, reproductive and developmental toxicity, and acute toxicity. One study claims that Dow has contributed to 80% of the Chlorpyrifos burden of the US.
In 1995, Dow was fined $732,000 for not sending the EPA reports it had received on 249 Dursban poisoning incidents. In June 2000, Dow withdrew registration of chlorpyrifos for use in homes and other places where children could be exposed, and severely restricted its use on crops. The company, however, continues to market Dursban in industrializing countries, including India, where Dow's sales literature claimed Dursban has "an established record of safety regarding humans and pets."
In 2003, Dow agreed to pay $2 million - the largest penalty ever in a pesticide case - to the state of New York, in response to a lawsuit filed by the Attorney General to end Dow's illegal advertising of Dursban as "safe".

Chlorpyrifos
On 2007, Dow was awarded an American Chemical Council (ACC) award of 'Exceptional Merit' in recognition of its longstanding energy efficiency and conservation efforts. Between 1995 and 2005, Dow reduced energy intensity (BTU per pound produced) by 22%. This is equivalent to saving enough electricity to power eight million US homes for a year. [9]

Energy Conservation
In 2007, Dow subsidiary Dow Agrosciences won an United Nations Montreal Protocol Innovators Award for its efforts in helping replace methyl bromide - a compound identified as contributing to the depletion of the ozone layer. In addition, Dow Agrosciences won an EPA "Best of the Best" Stratospheric Ozone Protection Award. [10]

Environmental Awards

Human rights controversies
A major manufacturer of silicone breast implants, Dow Corning was successfully sued in 1977 for damages arising from a woman whose implants ruptured; it was the first such successful suit, and Dow Corning paid $170,000 in a settlement. During the 1980s, Ralph Nader's Public Citizen Health Research Group publicised its belief that the implants were cancer-causing; in December of 1990, an episode of Face to Face with Connie Chung addressed the then-alleged dangers of silicone implants. More lawsuits, as well as Food and Drug Administration reviews, Congressional hearings, and scientific studies took place in the ensuing years; as of December 1991, 137 individual lawsuits were filed against Dow Corning, a figure that would rise to 3,558 in December 1992, and 19,092 by December 1994. Amidst the flurry of lawsuits in May 1995, Dow Corning filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection; several judgments against Dow Corning and Dow Chemical were handed down in lawsuits.
Several panels of independent experts, including the Institute of Medicine, have since found that silicone breast implants do not appear to cause any systemic diseases or cancers.

Breast implants
During the Vietnam War, Dow became the sole supplier of napalm to the United States military. Napalm, an incendiary liquid used as a weapon in Vietnam, led to human casualties that were widely displayed in the news media. Protests of Dow took place at many colleges but Dow's board of directors voted to continue production of napalm (after attempting to persuade the U.S. Department of Defense to accept responsibility for napalm and exculpate Dow's management).

Napalm
Agent Orange, a chemical defoliant containing dioxin, was also manufactured by Dow for use by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War; the dioxin from the defoliant made its way into the food chain and was linked to a major increase in birth defects among Vietnamese people. In 2005, a lawsuit was filed by Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange against Dow and Monsanto, which also supplied Agent Orange to the military. The companies argued that no link between Agent Orange and the alleged health problems had been proven, and furthermore that the companies are not responsible for the manner in which their products are used by the military.

Agent Orange
Until the late 1970's Dow produced DBCP (1,2-Dibromo-3-chloropropane), a soil fumigant and nematicide sold under the names the Nemagon and Fumazone. Workers at Dow's DBCP production were made sterile by exposure to DBCP. These male reproductive effects were consistent with animal experiments showing that DBCP sterilized rabbits. The workers successfully sued the company, and most domestic uses of the chemical were banned in 1977. Amid growing concerns over DBCP's effects on male workers, Dow ceased production and reclaimed DBCP that had been shipped to its users. Despite warning from the company about its health effects, Dole Food Company, who was using the chemical on its banana plantations in Latin America, threatened to sue Dow if it stopped DCBP shipments, so Dow shipped half a million gallons of DBCP to Dole, much it reclaimed from other users. Plantation workers who became sterile or were stricken with other maladies subsequently sued both Dow and Dole in Latin American courts, alleging that their ailments were caused by DCBP exposure. While the courts agreed with the workers and awarded them over $600 million in damages, they have been unable to collect payments from the companies. A group of workers then sued in the United States, and, on November 5, 2007, a Los Angeles jury awarded them 3.2 million dollars. Dole and Dow vowed to appeal the decision.

DBCP

Main article: Dow Corning Dow Corning
Current members of the board of directors of The Dow Chemical Company are Arnold Allemang (who is also a senior adviser to the company); chemistry professor Jacqueline Barton; former Boeing manager James A. Bell; Whirlpool Corporation chairman and CEO Jeff Fettig; former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Barbara Franklin; Dow chairman and CEO Andrew N. Liveris; Dow CFO Geoffery E. Merszei; Illinois Tool Works Inc. vice chairman James Ringler; Duke Energy Corporation president Ruth Shaw; and Claris Capital chairman Paul Stern (who is Dow's presiding director and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.)

Board of directors
On April 12, 2007, Dow dismissed two senior executives for "unauthorized discussions with third parties about the potential sale of the company." The two figures are executive vice president Romeo Kreinberg, and director and former CFO J. Pedro Reinhard. Dow claims they were secretly in contact with J. P. Morgan; at the same time, a story surfaced in Britain's Sunday Express regarding a possible leveraged buyout of Dow. The two executives have since filed lawsuits claiming they were fired for being a threat to CEO Liveris, and that the allegations were concocted as a pretext.

2007 dismissals
In September 2004, the company obtained the naming rights to the Saginaw County Event Center in Saginaw, Michigan; the center is now called the Dow Event Center. The Saginaw Spirit (of the Ontario Hockey League) plays at the Center, which also hosts events such as professional wrestling and live theater.
In October 2006 the company bought the naming rights to the stadium used by the Single-A Minor League baseball team located in its hometown of Midland, Michigan. The stadium (which opens in April 2007) is called Dow Diamond. The Dow Foundation played a key role in bringing the team, the Great Lakes Loons, to the city.
The company also sponsors a global running relay to highlight the need for better drinking water in locations around the globe. The run will roughly follow the 41st North parallel and cover nearly 12,000 miles (19,000 km). The run is organized by the Blue Planet Run Foundation.

Major Sponsorships
Dow CEO Andrew N. Liveris called 2005 the company's "best year ever" with operating profits of $5.4 billion, a jump of 56.5% compared with the previous year.
Liveris expects these goals to be reached predominantly with fossil fuels, through energy conservation and reduction of energy intensity, as he does not expect alternative energy to play a major role for at least 10-20 years.

75% reduction in environmental, health and safety indicators from 2005. The company aims to have no fatalities, and a reduction in injuries, spillages and leaks.
25% increase in energy efficiency.
2.5% annual reduction in greenhouse gas emissions intensity. The Human Element