Dow is working with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and other public and private organizations to identify cost-effective and systemic solutions to protect the watersheds in the communities where our manufacturing sites are located.
To tackle water reliability issues, Dow and TNC are working in and around our six most water-stressed sites to identify and implement watershed-level projects aimed at improving both water quality and water quantity in the region.
This work is building on a longtime collaboration that began a decade ago, when TNC and Dow set out together to demonstrate how building nature’s value into business strategy could lead to better outcomes for companies and conservation.
Highlights of the Dow-TNC collaboration include:
- Conducted pilot studies at Dow sites and published scientific analyses to demonstrate how incorporating ecosystem services can lead to better outcomes for both business and nature. For example, one pilot study found natural solutions such as coastal wetlands could help protect business assets from storm damage and mitigate risks associated with water shortages.
- Developed a suite of simple-to-use tools – The Nature Screen, the Ecosystem Services Identification & Inventory, or ESII, tool and the Nature Scorecard – to help corporate, government and organization decision makers rapidly assess project impacts at the landscape level. These site-level tools assess the various services that ecosystems provide to a company’s operations and the community.
- Serving as a model for other companies by embedding the value of nature into Dow’s operations and processes. In 2015, Dow issued its groundbreaking 2025 Valuing Nature Goal, part of its 2025 Sustainability Goals, and TNC worked with Dow to set up a process within the company to identify “nature-based” projects that would deliver business-driven value. Dow now is more than halfway to its ambitious target of finding $1 billion in business value, mostly through avoided costs, from projects that are good for business and better for ecosystems.
After 10 years, the collaboration between Dow and TNC continues to be an example of how companies and organizations from different sectors can work together to make real change happen. Learn more here.