Engaging stakeholders

• Constant dialog with our stakeholders

Our stakeholders include customers, employees, suppliers and shareholders, as well as representatives from science, industry, politics, society and media. Parts of our business activities, such as the use of new technologies, are frequently viewed by our stakeholders with a critical eye. In order to increase societal acceptance for our business activities, we take on critical questions, assess our business activities in terms of their sustainability, and communicate transparently. Such dialogs help us to even better understand society’s expectations of us and which measures we need to pursue in order to establish trust and build partnerships.

To involve our stakeholders even more closely, members of the Board of Executive Directors once again met with the Stakeholder Advisory Council in 2016 to discuss important aspects of sustainability. Topics include further integrating sustainability into our company, as well as our new “Value to Society” approach. This involves evaluating the societal benefits and costs generated by BASF’s business activities.

We have a particular responsibility toward our production sites’ neighbors. With the established community advisory panels, we aim to promote open exchange between citizens and our site management, and strengthen trust in our activities. In 2016, we developed new, globally applicable requirements for community advisory panels at our sites. These minimum requirements are oriented toward the grievance mechanisms outlined in the U.N. Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights. We keep track of their implementation through the existing global databank of the Responsible Care Management System.

BASF is involved in worldwide initiatives with various stakeholder groups, such as the U.N. Global Compact. BASF’s Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors is a member of the United Nations Global Compact Board. As a member of the U.N. Global Compact LEAD initiative, we support the implementation of the “Agenda 2030” and its Sustainable Development Goals. BASF is also active in local Global Compact networks.

We are part of the Global Business Initiative on Human Rights (GBI) . This group of globally operating companies from various branches aims to ensure implementation of the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. With international experts at the GBI conference in South Africa, we discussed how we can support a mining company and BASF supplier in fulfilling its responsibilities with respect to human rights.

Our lobbying and political communications are conducted in accordance with transparent guidelines and in keeping with our publicly stated positions. BASF does not financially support political parties. In the United States, employees at BASF Corporation have made use of their right to establish a Political Action Committee (PAC). The BASF Corporation Employee PAC is a voluntary, federally registered employee association founded in 1998. It collects donations for political purposes and independently decides how these are used, in accordance with U.S. law.