Dow Greater China: Localizing the Corporate Sustainability Strategy

The case illustrates the leadership challenges faced by Peter Wong, CEO of Dow Chemical Greater China, when locally implementing Dow's global sustainability strategy. A key question was whether a sustainability strategy could meaningfully contribute to the company's regional competitiveness and financial health when Greater China had only recently begun to tackle its sustainability challenges. Dow's 20-year journey of embedding sustainability in global corporate strategy is reviewed in some detail, illustrating the step-by-step process of aligning resources, transforming culture, and building external partnerships to enhance the possibility that sustainability strategies yield financial gains.