MIDLAND, MI —  Dow Chemical Company is asking its employees for the best ideas that can improve energy efficiency, setting aside $100 million for improvement projects.

In doing so, Dow is taking advantage of what many companies have found to be a valuable resource with environmental initiatives: their employees. 

A company's workers, the ones who interact with buildings, equipment, even lights day-to-day, are sometimes the ones who can best identify where energy is being wasted.

Dow will split the $100 million among its business units and manufacturing sites that propose projects with the biggest energy and greenhouse gas reductions along with accelerated cost savings.

So not only is Dow looking to its employees for ways to be more efficient and conserve energy, it's putting them in competition with one another, in a sense, to lure out the most promising projects.

The company said it has received about 60 submissions so far that, if implemented, would be worth $500 million, eliminate 8 trillion BTUs of energy and cut carbon dioxide emissions by 400,000 metric tons.

A range of energy efficiency projects helped News Corp. meet its goal to be carbon neutral, a target also met with carbon offsets. Like Dow's plans, projects came from the numerous business units under News Corp.'s wings. 

While a survey from early 2010 found that decision makers in companies have put less importance on energy efficiency, they also planned to increase spending on energy efficiency projects.

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