1992. The Remedy’s “Friday I’m in Love” is on the radio. Invoice Clinton is about to be elected to the presidency over George H.W. Bush and an rebel Ross Perot. The time period “browsing the web” is coined.

It was the 12 months — roughly 30 years in the past — that Dow’s first council of exterior specialists tasked with advising the corporate on environmental points got here to be.

For sure, most firms weren’t partaking severely on environmental points in 1992, not to mention asking unbiased advisers to information their selections round them. The Sustainability Exterior Advisory Council —  or SEAC, because it’s now identified (initially, the Company Environmental Advisory Council) — was a primary within the petrochemical trade. Whereas inner sustainability councils and govt boards are actually widespread, exterior advisory teams are nonetheless a relative rarity. One other instance is Trane Applied sciences’ Advisory Council on Sustainability. 

Right now, Dow’s SEAC has seven members plus chair Andre Argenton, the corporate’s vp of setting, well being and security, and chief sustainability officer — a longtime chief at Dow who has simply accomplished his first 12 months within the function.

Whereas cynics might think about a cabal of yes-men and yes-women validating Dow’s sinister whims with a wink and a nod, SEAC’s membership is numerous, their experience legit and verifiable. 

One member, on board since 2014, is John Warner, an originator of the sector of inexperienced chemistry. One other rockstar, Isabel Studer, is director of Alianza College of California-Mexico and the previous govt director for Mexico and Northern Central America at The Nature Conservancy. 

Group members are compensated (“primarily based on the time and dedication they supply us,” Argenton instructed me), and they’re chosen for the relevance of their perspective and experience to Dow’s materials points and world territories. Outdoors of an annual 2.5-day assembly, Argenton engages immediately with every member for steering “no less than yearly for positive, extra doubtless twice.” 

The group has helped set the imaginative and prescient, scope and ambition — and vitally, says Argenton, really helpful particular exterior companions — for Dow’s public sustainability objectives because the firm’s first foray in 2005. At the moment, the SEAC is supporting the great redesign of Dow’s water technique, in addition to the corporate’s goal-setting round nature and biodiversity as its 2025 objectives come due. 

I spoke with Argenton to seek out out the key to the advisory council’s longevity. He paints a compelling portrait of a council beneficial sufficient to Dow that it’s lasted 30 years — and will final 30 extra.

Dylan Siegler: You’re a few 12 months into your tenure as CSO. How do you’re employed with the Sustainability Exterior Advisory Council (SEAC)?

Andre Argenton: I do know you requested concerning the final 12 months, however my very first publicity to SEAC was over 10 years in the past, most likely 15. I used to be a analysis chief [at Dow Chemical], and I used to be invited to current to the SEAC how we have been serious about safer supplies and biodegradation, with a really robust technical emphasis. Within the circle, we had deep technical specialists in biodegradation. However they challenged me [from a different angle], asking: “Who was I partaking with within the exterior world? Which clients have been we working with?” I keep in mind this query: “Whenever you have a look at your clients, and the place this know-how goes to be deployed, what’s their view of sustainability?”   

Siegler: Are you able to give an instance of a call or framework that they’ve supported you on not too long ago?

Argenton: We have been one of many very first few corporations, if not the primary firm in our sector, to have a objective that values nature in our enterprise selections. That was a direct advice from SEAC — not solely “do that, it is sensible,” however they helped us agree that it was the precise factor to do. Then they helped us outline what the objective must be and had direct enter on what must be the pragmatic strategy, which strategies we must always develop and who we must always companion with in creating methodologies to make sure that no matter we are going to do for the following decade was verifiable, and that it was value-creating to us and to society.

Siegler: What do you assume Dow positive factors from partaking with the group on this approach?

Argenton: We worth their candid enter. There may be not a single assembly the place they don’t problem us [to] be bolder, go sooner. And that pushes us. We worth their variety of thought: All of them come from completely different backgrounds and a variety of [geographies]. We’ve them to problem us, to information us, to advise us, to inform us if we’re considering by an issue in a non-holistic approach, and that enter makes us stronger. It’s actually vital that once you determine to have a corporation like SEAC, to do it with the intent to say, “I’m going to be clear about every part. My challenges, my strengths, my issues.” And create an setting the place they really feel inspired or rewarded to be candid and clear. As a result of from that we develop.

Siegler: Have there been cases the place you’ve made selections in opposition to their recommendation?

Argenton: The choices we make as an organization require a a lot larger image of every part within the ecosystem — and they aren’t the only real group that guides us. The complexity of those selections is such that we get enter from SEAC, we get enter from inner stakeholders, we get enter from clients, we get enter from the group advisory panel, and from the schools we work with on the know-how aspect. And from that mixed set of inputs, that’s how we make our selections. (Editor’s notice: Dow’s Group Advisory Panels are teams of people who reside close to or round a chemical facility and meet recurrently. Nearly all of Dow websites have such teams.) 

Siegler: Given that you just do have all of these stakeholder teams that you just’re coping with and managing, is the SEAC at all times helpful? Or does it generally really feel like simply one other stakeholder group that that you must reply to?

Argenton: Let me put it into sensible phrases: I’m but to overlook a gathering with them over different priorities. I deeply care about what they’ve to inform me even when it’s, “Oh, all proper, I perceive, we’ve bought to go sooner on this one. Thanks.” And I feel the worth that they bring about to the corporate is to not me or to the sustainability group, it’s to the corporate.

Siegler: What recommendation would you give corporations that wish to begin a bunch like this?  

Argenton: I feel the primary [piece of advice] is that it’s value it. An organization will get the worth from an exterior group in the event you align that group’s experience to your materials points as an organization. Additionally, it’s not free. I’m not speaking concerning the compensation — it’s that you just get as a lot out of it as you place into it. You could do the pre-work, that you must preserve them educated and educated about your organization, that you must discover methods to embed them along with your firm.

Siegler: What would the final 30 years at Dow have regarded like with out SEAC?  

Argenton: With out them, we might not have the management place that we imagine we now have in sustainability. Each strategic choice that we’ve made in issues of sustainability had their enter. They add to the power and the robustness of our technique and our commitments and objectives — and the function of the council will stay simply as vital sooner or later because it has during the last 30 years.  

If your organization has an exterior advisory group supporting sustainability, we’d love to listen to about it. Attain out to me on LinkedIn.