”Delivering the Good Life of Tomorrow” — BASF at Sustainable Brands Detroit

Detroit was the home of Sustainable Brands’ global flagship conference from June 3 through June 6, focusing on “Delivering the Good Life of Tomorrow”. About 2,500 participants were at the conference. BASF was the presenting sponsor and participant in various workshops and discussions.  

Dirk Voeste, Global Product Safety & Registration AS, addressed the motto of the conference in his opening keynote. He spoke about how BASF carries out its corporate purpose, “We create chemistry for a sustainable future,” by pursuing ambitious goals along the entire value chain. The sustainability targets include CO₂-neutral growth until 2030, and growing sales with Accelerator solutions, which make a significant contribution in the value chain to €22 bn by 2030. BASF also drives Circular Economy solutions, especially for the plastics industry. In this way, BASF aims to both achieve profitable growth and take on social and environmental responsibility. These targets also help achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – and contribute to a world that provides a viable future with enhanced quality of life for all. 

Changes for a sustainable future

At BASF, innovations are key to a sustainable development, as, for instance, in Circular Economy projects. Together with representatives from other industries, Voeste co-presented a workshop called “The State of Circularity: Key Updates on the Progress Toward Circular Business Models“. The participants explored critical aspects of circular economy products as well as their challenges and successes. Circular Economy topics were the center of attention at BASF’s Innovation Lab. Over two days, participants created solutions on how the circular economy can work in the supply chain.

The number of megacities has been rising in the past few years. Therefore, an important question to ask is—how the “Good Life” can be incorporated into the cities and how BASF is going to contribute? BASF’s booth featured the company’s Smart Cities campaign that highlights solutions for more sustainable cities nationwide. In addition, BASF supports various projects and initiatives both globally and locally. Four of them are: Life Remodeled, Wildlife Habitat Council, Together for Sustainability  and the Green Chemistry and Commerce Council  (GC3), which were presented alongside BASF’s pavilion. 

A worldwide cooperation for sustainability

In April 2019, BASF was also the principal Sponsor at Sustainable Brands Istanbul. Under the theme “Redesigning the Good Life,” BASF participated in a deep-dive session that discussed more sustainable options for plastic waste, such as, ChemCycling. In the plenary session, BASF presented the Chemistry of Anatolia Project, which showed the value of working together. Part of the plenary were Serif Balcan from Cizre Science High School, his student Meryem Bayram and Murat Uris from Science Movement Project of the Young Guru Academy, which BASF recently started supporting.