Dow Inc.

Dow Inc. is a U.S.-based materials science company with headquarters in Midland, Michigan. The company's products include plastics, coatings, silicones, industrial chemicals, and performance materials for packaging, infrastructure, mobility, and consumer products. Dow's CEO is Karen S. Carter, and Jim Fitterling is the Executive Chair. Since Dow's chemical manufacturing processes consume large amounts of water for cooling, production, and wastewater treatment, water availability and quality are critical.

Dow's strongest water stewardship strength is its mostly non-consumptive cooling regime. Water is used to cool down manufacturing processes, and then returned to the environment after reaching a certain temperature, with the company reporting that 96% of withdrawn water is returned to the environment. Moreover, Dow's Water Resilience Index builds on water stress dimensions using standard water availability and quality risk screening tools, and its impact on sites by examining the characteristics of the watershed, operational dependencies, and community needs and potential remedies.

A significant resilience case is Dow's Freeport, Texas, operation, its largest manufacturing site. In July 2024, the Texas Water Development Board approved $747.5 million in financing for the Brazosport Water Supply Corporation's Harris Reservoir expansion. The project is intended to expand regional storage and improve drought reliability for both industrial facilities and surrounding communities. Because construction benefits have not yet been realized, the financing approval represents a risk-management milestone rather than completed water savings.

Dow has also developed an extensive portfolio of watershed and ecosystem projects. In Michigan, its work at the Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge improves water quality, biodiversity, and flood-storage capacity. The Loch Leven project in Louisiana is restoring wetland hydrology and provides approximately 12.1 billion gallons of flood-storage capacity. Dow treated acidic drainage from an abandoned Arkansas mine through a limestone-lined channel, creating a passive system that reduces downstream metal contamination without continuous operating costs. Additional nature-based projects include a five-acre stormwater wetland in Kentucky and the Seadrift constructed wetlands in Texas. The Seadrift system treats approximately 5 million gallons of industrial wastewater per day across 110 acres and has maintained regulatory compliance for almost three decades. Dow also transformed 23 acres of former ash-pond land in Michigan by removing contaminated material and planting more than 25,000 native plants.

Internationally, Dow's Böhlen, Germany, and Terneuzen, Netherlands, sites participate in the Reshape Water Use and AquaSPICE initiatives. The projects combine water recycling, digital water-network modeling, employee awareness, stakeholder cooperation, and pilot treatment systems for rainwater and cooling-tower streams. These initiatives demonstrate a systematic circular-water process, although several technologies were still in testing or development and should not yet be counted as completed savings.

Dow's Asia-Pacific work includes more than a decade of mangrove conservation in Thailand, covering approximately 2,000 acres across five provinces. In China, local residents participate in a river-inspection program that collects water-quality data and removes waste from the Qingyi River, a tributary of the Yangtze. Dow's product portfolio also includes PFAS-alternative technologies such as DOWSIL IE-9100 Emulsion and TRITON FCX-800 and FCX-810 surfactants. These products may reduce reliance on fluorinated chemistries in water-repellent textiles and waterborne coatings, although no direct water savings were disclosed.