Climate protection

We are committed to ambitious global climate protection. We make an important contribution with our products for climate protection and resource conservation as well as our efforts to further reduce emissions along our value-adding chain. The focus of our research and development is on continuously improving the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of climate protection solutions. We measure our performance with a transparent corporate carbon footprint.

Strategy

Resource conservation and climate protection are part of our sustainability strategy. Worldwide, we have made voluntary commitments to global climate goals. We identify measures to implement our goals and we constantly monitor their success.

We spend around one third of our research expenditures on developing new resource efficiency and climate protection solutions. We offer our customers products that help reduce emissions. As an associated partner in the Desertec Industrial Initiative, we are committed to generating solar and wind power in the desert regions of North Africa and the Middle East.

Our Climate Protection Officer coordinates all of our activities in this area and reports directly to the Board of Executive Directors. To further raise our employees’ awareness of these issues, in 2010, we held events relating to climate protection and energy efficiency. In Ludwigshafen, BASF’s climate protection experts discussed the company’s climate protection strategy and shared best practice examples with around 800 employees. On Earth Day, climate protection was a focus for our 16,000 employees in the United States.

Our climate protection strategy has received external recognition. BASF was also included in the new Carbon Performance Leadership Index (CPLI) in 2010. As in the previous year, BASF scored top marks in the materials sector in the prestigious Carbon Disclosure Leadership Index (CDLI) in 2010.
For more on emissions certificates, see Economic and sector-specific opportunities and risks
For more on research and development, see Research and development
For more on climate protection products, see Opportunities with climate protection products

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Greenhouse gas emissions in the BASF Group (1,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year)
	GWP Factor*	Baseline 2002	2007	2008	2009	2010
* GWP factor: global warming potential of the individual gases compared with CO2 ** Energy-related CO2 emissions cover both direct emissions arising from the generation of electricity and steam as well as indirect emissions from the acquisition and sale of electricity and steam. *** Halogenated fluorocarbons (HFC) and perfluorocarbons (PFC); calculated using the GWP factors of the individual components (IPCC 1995)
CO2**	1	19,877	22,654	22,023	21,300	23,189
N2O	310	6,407	5,963	6,294	9,553	1,862
CH4	21	244	82	91	137	94
HFC***	140–11,700	61	96	69	74	82
PFC***	6,500–9,200	0	0	0	0	0
SF6	23,900	0	1	2	1	3
		26,589	28,796	28,479	31,065	25,230