Sustainability

Our Targets

For us, business success tomorrow means creating value for the environment, society and business. That is why we pursue ambitious targets along our entire value chain. We report transparently on target achievement so that our stakeholders can track our progress.

Our objective is profitable growth: We want to grow sales volumes faster than global chemical production, further increase our profitability, achieve a return on capital employed (ROCE) considerably above the cost of capital percentage and increase the dividend per share every year based on a strong free cash flow.

Status Target Achievement 2022

In addition to these financial targets, we have set ourselves broad sustainability targets. We want to significantly reduce our CO₂ emissions in the coming years and align our product portfolio even more strongly with climate protection and the circular economy. To achieve this, we are updating the methodology used to assess our product portfolio against defined sustainability criteria and will apply it for the first time in 2023. We are also working to strengthen sustainability in our supply chains and use resources responsibly.

We want to further improve safety in production. Furthermore, we aim to promote diversity within the company and create a working environment in which our employees feel that they can thrive and perform at their best.

The objective of these targets is to steer our business into a more sustainable future, and at the same time, contribute to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We are focusing here on issues that we as a company can influence – especially SDG 2 (Zero hunger), SDG 5 (Gender equality), SDG 6 (Clean water and sanitation), SDG 7 (Affordable and clean energy), SDG 8 (Decent work and economic growth), SDG 12 (Responsible consumption and production) and SDG 13 (Climate action).

Most important KPIs

BASF has set itself ambitious targets along the value chain. Two of these indicators are particularly important:

Return on capital employed (ROCE)
Absolute CO₂ emissions

As our most important key performance indicators (KPIs), these two metrics are the main indicators used to steer the BASF Group. We also use ROCE for employee incentivization throughout the Group. The achievement of climate protection targets also influences the compensation of members of the Board of Executive Directors and senior executives.

Profitable growth

Achieve a return on capital employed (ROCE) considerably above the cost of capital percentage every year.

Grow sales volumes faster than global chemical production every year.

Increase EBITDA before special items by 3% to 5% per year.

Increase the dividend per share every year based on a strong free cash flow.

Effective climate protection

Reduce our absolute CO₂ emissions¹by 25% by 2030 (baseline: 2018).

Responsible procurement

Cover 90% of our relevant spend with sustainability evaluations by 2025

Have 80% of our suppliers improve their sustainability performance upon re-evaluation

Resource efficiency and safe production

Reduce worldwide process safety incidents per 200,000 working hours to ≤0.1 by 2025²

Reduce the worldwide lost-time injury rate per 200,000 working hours to ≤0.1 by 2025²

Introduce sustainable water management at our production sites in water stress areas and at our Verbund sites by 2030

Employee engagement and diversity

Increase the proportion of women in leadership positions with disciplinary responsibility to 30% by 2030

More than 80% of our employees feel that at BASF, they can thrive and perform at their best

Reduction target

¹ Scope 1 and Scope 2 (excluding the sale of energy to third parties, including offsetting). The target includes greenhouse gases according to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, which are converted into CO₂ equivalents (CO₂e). The baseline year is 2018.

² We will update the safety targets and report according to a new system in 2023.

³ We regularly calculate the employee engagement level. The most recent survey was conducted in 2022.