Ghada Abdelaziz: sustainability as a state of mind

Born and raised in Egypt, Ghada Abdelaziz moved to the United States in the 1990s, filled with dreams and hopes for the future. 30+ years later, she works at BASF’s site in East Setauket, Long Island, making sure our products are of the highest quality and that our processes are efficient. She is a passionate sustainability advocate, looking to improve the world around her. Learn more about the story of this Change Maker below.

What was your childhood like in Egypt?

I was born in Cairo, one of the most crowded areas in Egypt. Growing up there, I came from a huge and loving family. I'm the youngest of six girls.

My father owned a transportation company with his cousin, a company with big trucks that moved goods from Cairo to different states in the country, while my mom was the Chief Operating Officer at home.

I played basketball in junior high and was recruited to play for the Egyptian National Team, one of the best teams in Egypt. In high school, I played in a couple of African champions in Sengel, Somalia and Tunisia and even got to play in the Arab championship in Syria before moving to the U.S.

We were a middle-class family, and in families like ours, there always had to be a doctor, an engineer, a lawyer, a banker…Everyone would help one another. My sisters and I all have careers like that. In my case, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to study business or law, but I registered late, and all the spots in business were filled, so I went to law school.

When did you move to the United States?

I graduated from university, and in August 1991, I moved with my husband to the U.S., and I've been here for the past 32 years. My husband is an environmental engineer; he finished his undergraduate studies in civil engineering at Cairo University. He used to come to the U.S. in the summer to work and go back when college started. After he graduated, he was recruited and got a job as an engineer in the U.S.

When we moved, he realized that he wanted to go for a master's degree in environmental engineering. A very common practice among immigrants is that no matter what degree they have in their country, they study in the U.S. to understand the American system.

He completed a master's in civil engineering and worked as an environmental engineer in the Department of Transportation. I decided to pursue a master’s in business administration (MBA) in the U.S., at Stony Brook University.

When did you start working at BASF and what is your position today?

I started working in 1998 in a temporary position as an administrative assistant. My job was to help the quality control team with the database, log samples and create a certificate of analysis to accompany the customer's shipment. In 2006, BASF acquired the company.

Today, I work as a senior quality assurance analyst. My team consists of four people and each of us manages a different Quality system. In my case, I manage customer complaints and the annual product review. At BASF, we consider customer complaints a gift because every time a customer complains about a product, we put together a team, evaluate the entire production process, examine it closely and improve it. Continuous improvement is crucial for our site. We also get to know the customer in depth and how our products are making a difference.

What I really enjoy about working at BASF is the diversity, not only in terms of culture and language but also background, experience and points of view.

Sustainability is an important subject for you. Where did this interest come from?

It started with my husband and his career. He worked on a very important project on the Long Island Expressway, building a noise wall to prevent noise from reaching nearby homes. At the time, I didn’t really understand much about the environmental impact he was considering, but it all clicked when I started working for BASF and understood sustainability.

Twenty years ago, sustainability wasn't that big a topic. But when BASF acquired the company I worked for, I heard about it, read about it, and saw people talking about it. I wasn't really sure how we could make a difference, what we could do and how we could do it. Over the years, I started to take an interest.

In my head, everything my husband does in his job, what I hear and learn from BASF, and the changes I see in the climate are all somehow connected, and I started to think that we can definitely make a difference in the world. I became really passionate about sustainability in October of 2012, when we had a very bad hurricane in the area, and then again in August 2015, when we had to stay home because we had no power. I proposed installing solar lights to power our production site.

What role does sustainability play in your everyday life?

In my home, we don’t use disposable plates or cups; we use metal cutlery, reusable mugs, and ceramic plates. We only use the dishwasher when it’s full, although now that it’s just me and my husband at home, it takes much longer to fill. My husband cuts the grass and composts it in the backyard, and every few years we get premium soil instead of having to buy it. The minute springtime comes, I plant flowers and trees. I love nature, so I make sure to plant, I'm very active with gardening.

Both my parents were used to cooking with fresh ingredients. When I was young, I was tasked with buying fresh vegetables every day for our meals. My mom would never let food go to waste. I grew up with this mentality, as well as a strong sense of community, of helping those who needed it, and I continue this legacy here at BASF.

At the BASF site we have a gardening team, and last year, they planted peppers and tomatoes. Our quality control supervisor gathers all potential solutions from employees to make the site more sustainable and analyzes the result, time, cost and resources we need to complete each idea. In the past few years, we have started washing testing tubes instead of disposing of them to avoid excess waste; we’ve also implemented solutions to reduce the water used in production. I also submitted a couple ideas for reducing waste in production at our manufacturing site.

When you look at BASF's strategy and how things are done, you see that we are helping the community. We are also helping make a difference in the world through the different initiatives we are championing, for example in the U.S., Africa, Asia and Europe. We source sustainable ingredients responsibly, like palm oil, and we hold Kids’ Labs to motivate kids to get into science…it’s not just in the country where I work or the local community where I live; we're making a difference all over the world.