Dr. Neil C. Hawkins has been named corporate vice president and chief sustainability officer of Dow Chemical Co., effective Oct. 1.
In this global role, Hawkins has global responsibility for the company’s environment, health and safety, and sustainability strategy and initiatives. In conjunction with Dow’s executive leadership team, Hawkins will provide oversight for the company’s sustainability performance, including progress against the 2015 sustainability goals, and will ensure Dow continues to set the standard for sustainability. He also chairs the company’s Sustainability External Advisory Council, which has been in continuous service to the company since 1992.
In his 26-year tenure at Dow, Hawkins has been the architect of many breakthrough collaborations that advance sustainable development, including: Dow’s collaboration with the Nature Conservancy to value ecosystem services, which received the 2013 Harvard University Roy Award for Environmental Partnership; Dow’s work with UN Environment Program and China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection to improve chemical safety and emergency preparedness; and the University of Michigan Dow Sustainability Fellows Program. Since Hawkins joined Dow in 1988, he has held a wide range of leadership positions across EH&S, Public Affairs/Government Affairs, Operations and Manufacturing, and R&D.
Hawkins is also a widely recognized authority on sustainable business practices, environmental policy and win-win solutions for business and ecosystems, and was honored with the 2012 C.K. Prahalad Award for sustainability leadership by an individual. He is a board member of numerous organizations and he chairs the strategic advisory council of the University of Michigan’s Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise. He is a trustee of The Nature Conservancy (Michigan Chapter) and a member of the National Academies’ roundtable on science and technology for sustainability, through which he co-authored Sustainability and the U.S. EPA, commonly referred to as “the Green Book.”
Hawkins holds doctoral and master’s degrees from Harvard University, and is also an alumnus of Georgia Tech.
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