Responsibility for human rights

• Implementation of grievance mechanisms at production sites evaluated

BASF acknowledges its responsibility to respect human rights. In our own business activities, our aim is to prevent human rights abuses. As a participant in numerous global value chains, we are dependent on partners and demand that they likewise respect human rights and the associated standards. We offer to help our partners in their efforts to meet their human rights responsibilities.

We integrate human rights criteria into our business activities as standard: due diligence processes in investment, acquisition and divestiture projects, in product assessments along the product lifecycle, in supplier evaluation processes, in training for security personnel at our sites, as well as in systems to monitor labor and social standards.

Employees and third parties can report suspected or actual violations of laws or company guidelines to our compliance hotline. The hotline received 193 human rights-related complaints in 2017. All complaints received are reviewed and forwarded to the relevant departments for in-depth investigation. If justified, suitable measures are taken to address the issue.

We also documented the implementation of our minimum standards on grievance mechanisms as part of the community advisory panels at all production sites worldwide in 2017. These are based on the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Building on this, in 2018 we aim to ensure the uniform application of these standards at sites with an established local grievance mechanism.

BASF is part of the Global Business Initiative on Human Rights (GBI). This group of globally operating companies from various sectors aims to ensure implementation of the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. In 2017, we again consulted with representatives of civil society at an international and national level on an ongoing basis, which provided valuable input for our measures.