Dow has announced its 2022 Business Impact Fund selections: nine projects that help solve social challenges and advance sustainable solutions through multistakeholder collaboration. Founded in 2016, the Business Impact Fund brings together nonprofit organizations, entrepreneurs, and Dow customers, partners and employees to tackle many of society’s biggest challenges.
“Since its inception, Dow has awarded nearly $10 million through the Business Impact Fund to both solve world challenges while unlocking new business opportunities for the Company,” said Bob Plishka, global director of Strategic Corporate Partnerships, and Dow Company Foundation president. “This year, our selected projects address circularity and waste transformation initiatives, as well as climate protection, water conservation and biodiversity – all of which demonstrate Dow’s commitment to accelerating efforts to create a more sustainable and equitable future.”
The following projects were selected to receive Business Impact Fund support:
- Brazil: Circular Territory 100% TC 100 – This project invests in closing the loop for challenging flexible plastic waste and aims to establish a robust industrial ecosystem with the local municipality, waste collector cooperatives, population, public sector and vital private stakeholders looking to close the loop for multi-material packaging towards a goal of zero packaging to landfills.
- Brazil: Growing Roots, Cultivating Our Future – The project aims to work with 25 farmers to promote the reforestation of the Atlantic Forest, a biome responsible for supplying water to more than 60% of the Brazilian population. Dow will collaborate with the project team to develop a new business model for carbon capture that simultaneously addresses climate change, supports local communities and conserves biodiversity based on the Climate Community and Biodiversity, and Verified Carbon Standard from Verra, the world’s leading standards for climate action.
- Colombia: Project Viotá – Project Viotá will establish a coffee-based economy, helping improve the lives of 13,000 people in the community of Viotá, Colombia, and provide reconciliation and safety to its 25 peace-agreement participants. By collaborating with Corteva, a key customer, and a local nonprofit organization, the project will apply crop solutions technology to improve, protect and restore 50 hectares of land for proper coffee farming — creating sustainable jobs and income for the community through training in best practices and installing the infrastructure required for long-term productivity.
- India: Farm to Fork – Partnering with Satol Chemicals, a key customer for Dow in the cleaning segment, the Company will help implement cleaning and hygiene standards from farm to fork to avoid food waste and help provide safe food every school day for 250,000 children.
- Mexico: Ecozones – Dow, Omnigreen and Fundación Avina will jointly create 10 new mini-waste collection sites that will be easily accessible for consumers and improve employment conditions for waste collectors. In addition, each collection center seeks to improve reverse logistics, reduce the loss of value of recycled material and raise public awareness of proper waste management and disposal.
- Mexico: Give your School a Hand – Through a partnership with Berel and United Way, Dow’s differentiated coatings products will be used to renew 10 Multiple Care Centers – public schools that provide comprehensive care to students with multiple disabilities or serious developmental disorders. This project will enable technology adoption, growth and acceptance by both customers and the market while delivering a positive impact to customers, government, NGOs and society.
- South Africa: Invest in Dignity REFLEX South Africa – Enabling a circular economy in South Africa cannot be decoupled from socioeconomic issues, such as poverty and unemployment. This project will support the expansion of the Invest in Dignity Foundation to enable the empowerment of an additional 100 Mamas (women who collect recyclables) and divert an additional 50 metric tons (MT) per month of waste from landfills. This project supports women-owned small, medium and micro enterprises by providing operational infrastructure and training on sorting and waste collection.
- Thailand: Plastic Circularity Community Enterprise Model – This project establishes Thailand’s first high-quality plastic waste sorting and processing community enterprise. The successful implementation will bring extra income to the community, eliminate environmental waste, implant the proper mindset of circular plastic material usage and recycle 30 tons of materials per month.
- Vietnam: Integrated Plastic Waste Management Solution for Shrimp Farm – This project addresses the increasing challenge of collecting, cleaning, pre-processing and recycling plastic waste from the Mekong River Delta aquaculture industry through a targeted full value chain approach. The most significant challenge is the large volumes of unused plastic waste stemming from pond liners, primarily used in shrimp farming. To address this challenge, personnel at 30 aquaculture farms will train in material handling, waste recycling and environmental, health and safety compliance.
Since its launch in 2016, the Fund has supported 51 projects in 21 countries totaling nearly $10 million in investments. To date, the Fund’s projects have achieved the following outcomes:
- >900 jobs created
- ~11,000 metric tons of materials recycled
- ~35,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions avoided
- >1.6 million people impacted
Potential projects are nominated by Dow employees around the world. Winners are selected by a diverse committee representing business and functional leadership across Dow. Projects must meet the following criteria:
- Have the potential to address critical social issues or advance sustainability initiatives,
- Be scalable in their design and impact,
- Engage Dow customers and value chain partners,
- And create new business opportunities for Dow.