Exclusive – Dow Chairman & CEO Jim Fitterling on Why the COVID-19 Pandemic is Different Than Past Crises; When to Re-Open t...
15 April 2020 - 10:24PM
Business Wire
Managing in the COVID-19 Era
The chairman and CEO of Dow speaks with IHS
Markit vice chairman Daniel Yergin as part of the CERAWeek
Conversations series – available exclusively at
www.ceraweek.com/conversations
Jim Fitterling, chairman and CEO of Dow speaks about being at
the helm of a global company manufacturing essential goods and
materials in the COVID-19 era in an exclusive interview as part of
the CERAWeek Conversations series.
During a wide-ranging discussion with Daniel Yergin, vice
chairman, IHS Markit (NYSE: INFO), Mr. Fitterling talks about when
and how it would be possible to reopen the economy, which types of
transportation could come back sooner, and balancing the near-term
indispensability of plastics with the long-term goal of moving
towards a circular economy.
Selected excerpts:
(Edited slightly for brevity only)
- Why COVID-19 is unlike past
crises: “It feels like 1987 from a financial market
standpoint. It feels like 9/11 in the way things shut down in the
aerospace industry. It has some resemblance to 2008-09. But it’s
different in scope and scale the fact that it’s a rolling epidemic
moving around the world. That’s very different than anything we’ve
seen in the past.”
- His views on when and how to reopen
the economy:
“We have to get ourselves into the mindset of
what is safe. And how to get back into the work sites in a way that
is safe. We’re going to be working in an environment for at least
the rest of this year, maybe into next year, where we don’t yet
have a vaccine, we may not have a therapeutic response, but we
can’t shut the economies down and put the world on hold for a year
or 18 months while we develop that.
“We have to think about what are the
precautions we can take and bring people back to work in a way that
is safe: PPE (personal protective equipment), social distancing,
asking a few questions about contact; sanitation; washing your
hands. All these basic things that we can do to make it safe to go
back to work. We have to think about how different industries will
go back.”
“[Dow] is manufacturing around the world and
in Asia and we’re relatively safe and can continue to operate. If I
can do that, why can’t a construction site go back to work? Or why
can’t an infrastructure project like a highway be built? All the
political leaders have the right intent which is they want to
minimize the impact to the public. But remember, the vast majority
of people aren’t getting this disease and the impact of the economy
on the 90 percent is going to overwhelm what’s happening with the
virus.”
- Prospects for the automotive sector
vs. mass transportation (air, rail, etc.):
“We need to get people back into [auto]
dealerships. Dealerships are not a very concentrated place of
people. But my guess is people are going to want to go back to
driving before they’re going to want to go back to flying.
“We are seeing that data already in China –
road traffic is 80 percent of where it was back in the beginning of
January, but air travel and long trips and rail travel are only
40-50 percent of what they were. It’s going to take time for people
to feel comfortable going back into that space.”
- How pandemic has changed sentiment
toward plastics:
“We’ve seen a big change in sentiment.
Probably the most dramatic are the grocery stores and retailers
saying we don’t want reusable bags coming into the stores. We’d
rather issue you a clean, new, sanitary disposable one-time
bag.
“Safety, health, hygiene and security have
come to the top of the list. I don’t believe that some of the
issues that we face on plastics longer-term will go away. But I do
think people are recognizing the value of plastics and chemicals
and how they can be helpful in this fight.”
- Dealing with plastic
waste:
“The biggest thing is we have an
infrastructure problem. From an economics standpoint it’s cheaper
today to make a virgin plastic material than it is to recycle
anything and bring it back into the economy. That isn’t going to
create a sustainable circular economy. You need an infrastructure
in place that encourages products to be brought back and
recycled.”
Watch the complete video at: www.ceraweek.com/conversations
Additional information: Jim Fitterling bio
About CERAWeek Conversations:
CERAWeek Conversations features original interviews and
discussion with energy industry leaders, government officials and
policymakers, leaders from the technology, financial and industrial
communities – and energy technology innovators.
The series is produced by the team responsible for the world’s
preeminent energy conference, CERAWeek by IHS Markit.
New installments will be added weekly at
www.ceraweek.com/conversations.
Additional segments currently available include:
- Leadership Dialogue: Patrick Pouyanné – The chairman and chief
executive of TOTAL interviewed by IHS Markit vice chairman Daniel
Yergin.
- Why the Middle East Still Matters – featuring Suzanne Maloney,
interim vice president and director of the foreign policy program,
Brookings Institution, and Carlos Pascual, senior vice president,
global energy, IHS Markit
- How COVID-19 Will Change Global Politics – featuring William
Burns, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
and Carlos Pascual, senior vice president, global energy, IHS
Markit.
- Russia, Oil and Geopolitics in the COVID-19 Era – featuring
Angela Stent, director, Center for Eurasian, Russian and East
European Studies at Georgetown University
- Global Oil Markets in Turmoil – Featuring Dan Yergin, vice
chairman, IHS Markit and Jim Burkhard, vice President, oil markets,
IHS Markit. Moderated by Atul Arya, senior vice president, energy,
IHS Markit.
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