Dow Laboratory Safety Academy: Improving Awareness of Reactive Chemicals Hazards and Preventing Incidents

University laboratory safety awareness and practices have improved steadily over the past twenty-five years since OSHA issued the Occupational Exposure to Hazardous Chemicals in Laboratories standard (29 CFR 1910.1450). However, developing and sustaining a positive safety culture in academic labs remains a challenge as demonstrated by the major incidents which continue to occur and result in significant injury and loss. In an effort to enhance laboratory safety, The Dow Chemical Company initiated pilot programs with Dow’s strategic university partners at U.C. Santa Barbara, University of Minnesota, and Pennsylvania State University. Dow worked closely with graduate students, faculty, and staff to identify areas of improvement and help nurture a sustainable culture of laboratory safety. Content and feedback from the pilot programs were utilized to develop an online platform for safety resources and learning. Subsequently, Dow launched the Dow Lab Safety Academy (LSA) at http://safety.dow.com in a digital learning environment which shares Dow’s best-in-class industrial lab safety culture and practices in a quick and accessible format. With over 40,000 visits to date, the LSA is reaching its goal to enhance awareness of safety practices in academic research laboratories and to promote a safety mindset in the future workforce of the chemical community. This paper will provide an overview of the LSA including its modules which provide information on methods for evaluating potential laboratory hazards as well as best practices for mitigating risks. It will also cover Dow’s approach to identifying and quantifying potential reactive chemicals hazards, managing change, and sustaining its performance through reactive chemicals/laboratory hazard evaluation (RC/LHA) reviews. Finally, this paper will share best practices at Dow for building and sustaining a strong safe culture in the laboratory through effective mitigation of potential reactive chemicals risks. Our hope is that by broadly sharing what Dow does internally we can help improve the safety of researchers working with hazardous chemicals in any laboratory environment.