The Board approved restructuring actions to enhance the Company's agility and long-term competitiveness, including a global workforce cost reduction program and rationalization of manufacturing assets.

The company progressed with key projects aligned to longer-term sustainability goals, including propylene glycol RDC (lower carbon) featuring DECARBIA™ bio-based technology and propylene glycol CIR (circular) featuring RENUVAT™ recycled content.

Dow Inc. announced Seadrift, Texas, as the location of its small modular nuclear reactor project as part of a joint development agreement with X-energy.

Linde was selected as the industrial gas partner for the supply of circular hydrogen and nitrogen for its Fort Saskatchewan Path2Zero investment.

Dow commissioned the retrofit of its first UNIFINITY™ Fluidized Catalytic Dehydrogenation (“FCDh”) technology for cost-advantaged propylene and in 2023 has been optimizing operations of this new technology.

The company is progressing and scaling key projects aligned to longer-term sustainability goals across the world leading propylene glycol franchise including propylene glycol RDC (lower carbon) featuring DECARBIA™ bio-based technology from second generation bio-based raw material, and propylene glycol CIR (circular) featuring RENUVAT™ recycled content from post-consumer waste streams.

The company is subject to increasing climate-related risks and uncertainties, many of which are outside of its control. Climate change may result in more frequent and damaging severe weather and weather-related events, potential changes in precipitation patterns and extreme variability in weather patterns.

A public health crisis or global outbreak of disease could have a negative effect on the Company's manufacturing operations, supply chain and workforce, creating business disruptions that could have a substantial negative impact on the Company's results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.

Increased concerns regarding plastic waste in the environment, resulting in the demand for substitute materials; brand owners selectively reducing their use of plastic products; a lack of plastic waste collection and recycling infrastructure and a failure to develop circular plastic materials or a circular economy for plastics.

Increased levels of competition could result in lower prices or lower sales volume, which could have a negative impact on the Company's results of operations.

Basic raw materials are processed through many stages to produce a number of products that are sold as finished goods at various points in those processes.

The business' solutions minimize friction and heat in mechanical processes; manage the oil and water interface; deliver ingredients for maximum effectiveness; facilitate dissolvability; enable product identification; decarbonize oil and gas products; reduce energy and water use in textiles; and provide the foundational building blocks for the development of chemical technologies.

COS as a percentage of net sales was 89.1 percent in 2023, compared with 84.9 percent in 2022.

SG&A expenses decreased in 2023 primarily due to lower bad debt expense, the impact of structural cost improvements and lower performance-based compensation costs, which more than offset increases associated with the Company's restructuring implementation and efficiency actions and fringe benefit expenses tied to stock market changes.

On January 25, 2023, the Board approved restructuring actions to achieve the Company's structural cost improvement initiatives in response to the continued economic impact from the global recessionary environment and to enhance its agility and long-term competitiveness across the economic cycle. These actions are expected to be substantially complete by the end of 2024.

Research and development (“R&D”) expenses were $829 million in 2023, compared with $851 million in 2022. R&D expenses decreased in 2023 primarily due to the impact of structural cost improvements as well as lower performance-based compensation costs.

Dow is investing in longer-term, future-focused manufacturing technologies that will be critical in the decarbonization of the Company's manufacturing.

Dow Technology won the 2023 ICIS Innovation Award which recognizes companies that are paving the way in product, process, and sustainability innovations across the chemicals industry.

The Company's capital expenditures were $2,356 million in 2023 and $1,823 million in 2022. Capital spending was higher in 2023 as the Company continued the ramp up of investments in its higher return, lower risk and quick payback incremental growth projects.

In 2023, Dow Inc. repurchased $625 million of the Company's common stock.

In 2023, Dow Inc. declared and paid dividends to common stockholders of $2.80 per share ($1,972 million).

Dow is committed to protecting the planet by combating climate change, including contributing to lower CO2e emissions and conserving and restoring natural resources, such as native habitats and freshwater, within its operations and value chains.

Dow is taking a leading role in driving a more circular economy by designing for circularity, building new business models for circular materials, and partnering in an industrial ecosystem to end plastic pollution.

Dow is innovating new materials that offer more favorable health and environmental profiles over their life cycles than incumbent solutions.

For example, market uncertainty and an economic downturn driven by inflationary pressures have recently reduced demand for the Company's products, resulting in decreased sales volume.

Political tensions; war, including the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and between Russia and Ukraine with the related sanctions and export restrictions; terrorism; epidemics; pandemics; or political instability in the geographic regions or industries in which the Company sells its products could also reduce demand for the Company's products and result in decreased sales volume or supply chain disruptions, which could have a negative impact on the Company's results of operations.

Plastics have faced increasing public scrutiny due to low recycling rates and the presence of plastic waste in the environment, including the world's oceans and rivers, and pollution associated with the manufacture of plastics.