Dow recognised by Amcham for CSR initiatives in Vietnam

The award further highlights Dow’s contributions to the country’s sustainable growth after its 20 year of presence in the market. Dow’s smart CSR programmes not only finance but also leverage Dow’s technologies and solutions to deal with issues severely impacting lives of local underprivileged.

Dow’s typical smart CSR programmes in Vietnam throughout its two decades of presence in the country include empowering more than 2,200 engineers with knowledge about cleaner production through over 30 workshops on “Training of Cleaner Production and Waste Management for Businesses in Vietnam”, and training ISO 14000 for over 800 engineers in 2015 to improve their awareness on environment protection and sustainable development.

One such programme helped address the need of clean water for rural schools and hospitals through more than 20 reverse osmosis water purification systems with a capacity of up to 7,000 litres per day per system.

In 2015, Dow in collaboration with People’s Aid Coordinating Committee (PACCOM) has helped over 3,000 pupils and teachers in the country to access clean, safe and certified water; collaborating with Habitat for Humanity to solve the challenge of decent housing for over 20 underprivileged families and a variety of other meaningful programmes in education and healthcare.

Acting as a co-chair and one of the founding members of Vietnam Business Council for Sustainable Development (VBCSD), Dow has actively contributed to Vietnam’s sustainable development through VBCSD’s action plans and the Vietnam Corporate Sustainability Forum to help Vietnamese businesses enhance their competitiveness in a sustainable way, especially in the context that the landmark Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement negotiations were concluded in October 2015.

“CSR campaigns are an inevitable part of our sustainable growth strategies in Vietnam. We have a two-decade history of being closely attached to one of the Southeast Asia fastest-moving markets and we strongly desire to further extend our contributions to the Vietnamese,” said Tomoyuki Sasama, Vietnam country manager, Dow in Vietnam.

“Amcham CSR 2015 Award is a notable encouragement and pride for us as well when the year of 2015 marks the 20 year normalisation of Vietnam – US diplomatic relations and it is also the 20th anniversary of Dow in Vietnam,” Sasama added.

Adam Sitkoff, executive director, Amcham in Hanoi highlighted, “Our first-ever Corporate Social Responsibility Recognition Award Programme is designed to raise awareness of CSR among AmCham members and the community, and to provide recognition to firms with best practice CSR programmes in Vietnam. We identify CSR best practices as an understanding of the linkages between business operations and society, and conducting business in a way that creates both long-term economic and social value.”

Apart from long-term CSR programmes, during the past two decades, Dow has been actively supporting Vietnam’s farmers and industries to solve the challenges of clean water, clean production and energy as well as improving agricultural yield, which in turn contributes to the sustainable development of the whole society.

Dow’s products are not only essential inputs to the vast majority of consumer durables segments such as footwear, electronics, appliances, crop protection, water and waste water treatment, alternative energy sector, health and nutrition but they also see a strong presence in transportation and infrastructure materials.

Vietnam, with double digit growth in recent years, is a major market for Dow in the Southeast Asian region.

As a global supplier of diverse yet innovative chemical inputs, Dow is well positioned to support Vietnam to develop manufacturing and supporting industries.

Ted Osius, US ambassador to Vietnam said, “We congratulate Dow on receiving the American Chamber of Commerce award for its Corporate Social Responsibility programmes, and we highly appreciate Dow’s on-going contributions to the development of Vietnam’s industries and communities and to the bilateral relationship betweenVietnam and the United States.”