Dow Canada in Prentiss: Protecting Health and the Environment

Dow is committed to a “Vision of Zero”—zero incidents, injuries, illnesses and zero environmental harm. Every Dow employee is accountable for achieving this goal. If the Vision of Zero is achieved, we will have returned home safely each night and protected the health and well-being of the communities surrounding our Prentiss site.

Since becoming part of Dow Canada in 2001, the Prentiss site has been successful in reducing its impact on the environment. Emissions of carbon dioxide per pound of production have decreased significantly, as have chemical emissions from our operations.

As part of Dow’s 2015 Sustainability Goals, we are working to improve our environmental performance even further. We have set the global goal of reducing our energy intensity by 25% between 2005 and 2015. This means that we will use 25% less energy per pound of production within 10 years. By reducing energy intensity and the corresponding greenhouse gas emissions, Dow Canada will have contributed to a solution for climate change.

Worker and process safety is emphasized at all Dow Canada sites, including Prentiss. Our Prentiss site is surrounded by farmland, and we are committed to preventing adverse events that could affect these activities. Dow Canada has targeted a 90% reduction in loss of primary containment incidents, where a product or chemical escapes from its container or piping, possibly affecting the environment. Over the past few years, Prentiss has had solid worker safety performance and is constantly working to develop improvements to our safety procedures. In each year since 2003, the site has had injury rates of 0.71 or lower per 200,000 hours worked.