BASF

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company provides evidence of linking performance criteria in senior executives’ remuneration policies to specific targets and objectives which cover nature, including biodiversity, and social issues.

Lobbying and advocacy
The company discloses a list of industry associations it selected for its analysis on industry association review. It has a clear and detailed framework for assessing alignment of its trade associations with its climate positions. It has an opportunity, however, to include other key topics in its analysis such as biodiversity. Furthermore, the company establish an action plan to address misalignment which includes clear escalation steps.

Stakeholder engagement
The company discloses an overview of the issues raised during its stakeholder engagement activities and the channels it uses to engage with its stakeholder groups.

Sustainable development strategy
The company discloses its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability impacts as well as the outcome of this process, in relation to its sustainability strategy. Additionally, it reports consistently against all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has set a goal to reduce absolute greenhouse gas (scope 1 and 2) emissions by 25% by 2030, compared to a 2018 baseline year. Additionally, it is aiming for net zero emissions by 2050. The company consistently reports its progress towards these objectives. In pursuit of emissions reduction, it has successfully lowered its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, the company has made efforts to address its scope 3 GHG emissions.

Ecosystem conversion
The company’s conversion-free target covers all its high-risk commodities. It also discloses some activities to achieve conversion-free supply chains.

Fertiliser and pesticide use
The company discloses quantitative evidence on optimising the use of fertilisers by means of providing products that enhance fertilization efficiency.

Water withdrawal
The company demonstrates its commitment to reducing water withdrawal in its own operations. It not only reports the amount of water withdrawn for its own operations in water-stressed areas but also engages with suppliers to reduce their water withdrawal.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company is committed to addressing malnutrition and food insecurity. It also discloses evidence of nutrition-sensitive activities aimed at improving the nutritional quality of different crops. These activities include fortification of staple foods like rice, sugar, and flour.

Workforce nutrition
The company has flexible working hours for nursing mothers to provide workplace breastfeeding support.

No leading practices were identified in the social inclusion area.

Act ethically
The company has a transparent global tax strategy that strictly adheres to the tax laws and regulations of the countries in which it operates. Additionally, the company has a strong policy in place that explicitly prohibits bribery and corruption. It publicly commits to protecting personal data and enforces a supplier code of conduct that strictly prohibits any form of bribery and corruption.

To promote transparency and accountability, the company provides a website and accessible phone numbers for all stakeholders to report concerns or complaints related to bribery and corruption, without fear of reprisals. The reporting channel is open to everyone, offering the option to remain anonymous or identify themselves.

Moreover, the company discloses its approach to lobbying and political engagement through a policy statement. When engaging third-party agencies or partner staff to interact with political stakeholders on its behalf, the company’s policy governs the process and requires all agencies to commit in writing to abide by its ethical standards.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has a publicly available policy statement in which it commits to respecting the health and safety of workers. Additionally, its policy statement emphasizes the importance of its business relationships in prioritizing the health and safety of their workers. By regularly monitoring their performance in this area, the company ensures accountability.

The company also provides transparency in terms of the age distribution of its direct operations workforce, as well as the birth year information for its board of executive directors and supervisory board.

Furthermore, as a signatory of WEPs since 2020, the company publicly pledges its support for gender equality and women’s empowerment. It also sets a specific goal of increasing the representation of women in leadership positions to 30% by 2030, which it discloses to the public.

Respect human rights
The company has made a publicly available policy statement in which it commits to respecting both the ILO core labour rights and human rights. To ensure transparency and accountability, the company provides accessible channels for all workers to voice their complaints or concerns. This can be done through a dedicated website and phone numbers. The company’s website explicitly states that these reporting channels are open to anyone and allows the complainant the option to remain anonymous or provide identification. The grievance mechanism is also accessible to all external stakeholders who may be negatively affected by the company.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
While the company states that the board of directors has expertise in sustainability, it has an opportunity to disclose whether its highest governance body has expertise or access to expertise with respect to the company’s most material sustainability topics.

Lobbying and advocacy
While the company reports no misalignment with its industry associations, it discloses only a limited selection of trade associations. Furthermore, it could set clear deadlines for each of its escalation steps in case of misalignment and consistently reports on their application.

Stakeholder engagement
The company has an opportunity to explain how it has responded to key issues raised by each stakeholder group and disclose specific outcomes implemented to respond to key issues for each stakeholder group, beyond materiality assessment.

Sustainable development strategy
While the company discloses some sustainability targets including climate and social inclusion, it has an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain, such as nutrition, water, and biodiversity.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has stated its commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement. However, there is no evidence to suggest that the company’s scope 1 and 2 targets are in line with the 1.5°C trajectory. There is an opportunity for the company to disclose a time-bound target for reducing its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions. By setting such targets, the company can ensure that its scope 3 emissions align with the 1.5-degree trajectory.

Ecosystem conversion
The company has an opportunity to disclose time-bound targets to achieve conversion-free supply chains.

Fertiliser and pesticide use
The company has an opportunity to disclose targets that encompass optimizing the use of fertilizers and minimizing the use of pesticides as part of its R&D and value chain activities, and report progress against these targets.

Food loss and waste
The company has the opportunity to declare its FLW reduction targets and provide updates on its progress towards achieving these targets. Additionally, the company can align its FLW reduction goal with SDG12.3, which aims for a 50% reduction by 2030.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company has an opportunity to disclose quantitative evidence regarding plastic use reduction and use of sustainable packaging.

Water withdrawal
The company aims to implement sustainable water management practices at Verbund sites and all production sites located in water stress areas by 2030, which would cover 89% of its total water usage. It is worth noting that the company has made significant progress towards this goal, achieving 61.6% of its target in 2022 compared to 53.5% in 2021. However, the target needs to be more specific, particularly for water stress areas, as per the required indicator.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity to disclose the outcomes of its nutrition-sensitive activities and provide data demonstrating how its initiatives are contributing to addressing malnutrition and/or increasing the availability and variety of nutrient-dense crops.

Food safety
The company has an opportunity to showcase that all of its own operations are certified to a GFSI food safety scheme or other widely recognized industry-specific certification, demonstrating 100% compliance. Additionally, the company can disclose the percentage of its suppliers that are certified to a GFSI-recognized food safety scheme.

Workforce nutrition
While the company has health and wellbeing promotion programs for its employees it has an opportunity to enhance the program by incorporating nutrition-focused health checks or nutrition education. Furthermore, it has an opportunity to implement a programme to offer healthy food options to its employees and expand its nutrition initiatives to its supply chain workers.

Child labour
Although the company discloses a due diligence process on child labour for its operation, it could provide examples of related remediation programmes. Further, it has an opportunity to indicate how it is building the capacity of its suppliers to prevent child labour impacts. The company expects its suppliers to prohibit child labour but could disclose related policy requirements including the use of an age verification for workers.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company has an opportunity to demonstrate that it has identified living income benchmarks for some commodities and/or regions and disclose how it assesses living income gaps.

Forced labour
The company has an opportunity to disclose forced labour requirements for its operations and supply chain such as a prohibition to pay recruitment fees, to retain workers’ personal documents or to restrict workers’ freedom of movement. Further, it could provide evidence of how it builds the capacity of its suppliers to prevent forced labour impacts.

Health and safety of vulnerable groups
The company has an opportunity to recognise and assess the health and safety risks to vulnerable groups, such as migrant and temporary labourers, women and young farmers. Furthermore, it could provide evidence of support activities that improve the health and safety of vulnerable groups.

Land rights
The company has an opportunity to disclose a commitment to respect ownership and use of land and natural resources and related legitimate tenure rights. Furthermore, it could describe a process at its operations and supply chain level to identify legitimate tenure rightsholders when acquiring, leasing or making other arrangements to use land and to negotiate with them to provide adequate compensation.

Living wage
The company has an opportunity to set a target for paying a living wage across its direct suppliers and describe how it determines a living wage for the regions where it sources. Also, it could disclose the percentage of workers across its own operations or suppliers that are paid a living wage.

Act ethically
The company has the option to provide a clear description of how it identifies bribery and corruption risks and impacts in specific locations or activities within its own operations. Additionally, it currently publishes a report on its lobbying contributions in the United States and is willing to disclose data on lobby expenditures upon request from national or regional transparency registries. However, it is uncertain whether the company engages in lobbying activities exclusively in these specified regions or countries. Therefore, there is an opportunity for the company to either disclose its lobbying expenditures in all locations where it carries out lobbying activities or specify that it only does so in certain countries or regions.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has an opportunity to disclose a time-bound target for paying all workers a living wage. Additionally, it could explain how it determines a living wage in the regions where it operates. While the company expects its suppliers to comply with local laws regarding minimum wages, it should also describe how it supports the payment of a living wage through its business relationships.

The company’s board currently consists of 6 members, with only 1 being female. This means that the percentage of women on the board is currently 16.66%. In order to promote gender diversity, the company has a chance to increase this percentage further.

Furthermore, the company could also disclose the ratio of basic salary and remuneration between women and men in its total direct operations workforce, broken down by employee category and significant locations of operation.

Respect human rights
While the company expects its business relationships to respect the right not to be the subject of forced labour, child labour, and discrimination, it has an opportunity to reference all the ILO fundamental rights at work, including freedom of association and collective bargaining, in all contexts and locations.

Although the company mentions conducting due diligence, it should explicitly state that it also conducts human rights due diligence that involves identifying potential risks and impacts in its own operations and supply chain. The company also has an opportunity to improve its disclosure by providing the results of its human rights risk assessment. In addition, the company could disclose the existence of a global system designed to address, prevent, or mitigate these salient human rights issues.