Begin forwarded message:
>
> May 3, 2005
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>
> DOW RELEASES "ACCEPTABLE RISK" PROGRAM AT BANKING CONFERENCE
> "Risk Calculator" helps ensure sound business practice
>
> When government is made to take the back seat in regulatory matters,
> corporations must rely on their own judgment to determine what is, and
> what isn't, acceptable where human lives are at risk.
>
> Doing this has until now been more of an art than a science. With
> Acceptable Risk, business finally has a risk standard of its own,
> reflecting its values and allowing us to reliably factor human and
> environmental casualties into business decisions in accordance with
> the soundest of economic principles.
>
> Last Thursday in London, Dow representative Erastus Hamm unveiled
> Acceptable Risk, the Acceptable Risk Calculator, and the Acceptable
> Risk mascot–a life-sized golden skeleton named Gilda–to an audience
> of about 70 banking professionals, including some from Dow's largest
> investors. Many of the bankers in attendance excitedly signed up for
> licenses for the Calculator, which helps businesses scientifically
> determine the point where casualties start to cut into profit, while
> suggesting the best regions on earth to locate dangerous ventures.
>
> Hamm told the bankers how Acceptable Risk would have applied to some
> famous "skeletons in the closet" of big business: IBM's WWII sale of
> technology to the Nazis for use in identifying Jews; Dow's production
> of napalm and Agent Orange for use in Vietnam; and the plight of
> Dursban, a Dow pesticide whose main ingredient came out of Nazi nerve
> agent research, was tested on student volunteers as recently as 1998,
> and was finally banned two years later.
>
> Each of these cases entailed heavy casualties, Hamm noted, and yet
> each was immensely profitable and therefore consistent with sound
> business practice. Hamm said the case of the Bhopal gas disaster of
> 1984 was slightly more complicated–but so long as so-called "socially
> responsible" investor groups do not get away with forcing Dow to spend
> too much time on the matter at the May 12 AGM and elsewhere, that case
> could end up being a "golden skeleton" too.
>
> Please visit http://www.dowethics.com/risk/ to try out the Acceptable
> Risk Calculator for yourself, and for text, photos and video of the
> London announcement.
Fwd: DOW RELEASES 'ACCEPTABLE RISK' AT BANKING CONFERENCE
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Type: discussion