Sustainability

Our Targets

Business success tomorrow means creating value for the environment, society and business. That is why we have set ourselves ambitious targets along our entire value chain. We report transparently on our target achievement so that our stakeholders can track our progress. In order to grow profitably, 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 2021

We also pursue broad sustainability targets. In this context, we significantly raised our CO₂ reduction target in 2021.²We want to strengthen the sustainability focus of our product portfolio and will update our portfolio steering targets in 2022.³ We also strive to strengthen the sustainability of our supply chains and use resources responsibly. We want to further improve safety in production. In addition, 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 sustainable future, and at the same time, contribute to the implementation of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We are focusing on issues where we as a company can make a significant contribution, such as climate protection, sustainable consumption and production, and fighting hunger.

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%–5% per year.

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

Effective climate protection

Reduce our absolute CO₂ emissions¹ by 25% by 2030.

Sustainable product portfolio

Achieve €22 billion in Accelerator sales by 2025²

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 2025

Reduce the worldwide lost-time injury rate per 200,000 working hours to ≤0.1 by 2025

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

¹Includes Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. In March 2021, we replaced our previous target of CO₂-neutral growth until 2030 (baseline 2018: 21.9 million metric tons of CO₂e) with a new, more ambitious climate protection target to reduce absolute CO₂ emissions by 25% compared with 2018 (new target: 16.4 million metric tons of CO₂e).
²We already reached our 2025 sales target for Accelerator products in 2021. Consequently, we will update our product portfolio steering target over the course of 2022.
³We regularly calculate the employee engagement level. The most recent survey was conducted in 2020. The next survey is planned for spring 2022.