Responsible Care Management System

Responsible Care Management System

• Global directives and standards for safety, security, health and environmental protection
• Regular audits to monitor performance and progress

BASF’s Responsible Care Management System comprises the global directives, standards and procedures for safety, security, health and environmental protection for the various steps along our value chain. Our regulations cover the transportation of raw materials, activities at our sites and warehouses, and distribution of our products as well as our customers’ application of the products. Specifications for implementing these measures are laid out in binding directives that are introduced in consultation with employee representatives. These describe the relevant responsibilities, requirements and assessment methods. Our policies and requirements are constantly updated. We also maintain a dialog with government institutions, associations and other international organizations.

We set ourselves ambitious goals for safety and security, and health and environmental protection. We regularly conduct audits to monitor our performance and progress. We assess the potential risks and weaknesses of all our activities – from research and production to logistics – and the effects of these on the safety and security of our employees, the environment or our surroundings. In our databases, we document accidents, near misses and safety-related incidents at our sites as well as along our transportation routes to learn from these; appropriate measures are derived according to specific cause analyses.

Audits

• 152 safety, security, health and environmental protection audits performed

Regular audits help ensure that standards are met for safety, security, health and environmental protection. We conduct regular audits every three to six years at all BASF sites and at companies in which BASF is a majority shareholder. We use an audit database to ensure that all sites and plants worldwide are audited. Sites and companies acquired as part of acquisitions are audited in a timely manner to bring these into line with our standards and directives as necessary. After the integration phase is complete, they are generally audited within one to two years, depending on complexity and size. We have defined our regulations for Responsible Care audits in a global Group requirement. During our audits, we create a safety and environmental profile that shows if we are properly addressing the existing hazard potential. If this is not the case, we agree on measures and monitor their implementation, for example, with follow-up audits.

Our Responsible Care audit system complies with the ISO 19011 standard and is certified according to ISO 9001. Worldwide, 183 BASF production sites are certified in accordance with ISO 14001 and EMAS (Eco-Management and Audit Scheme) (2018: 181). In addition, 53 sites worldwide are certified in accordance with OHSAS 18001 (2018: 53).

In the BASF Group in 2019, 137 environmental and safety audits were conducted at 90 sites (2018: 126 audits at 84 sites). The focus was on auditing sites based on the level of risk. For production plants with a medium and high hazard potential, we additionally conducted 42 short-notice audits at 33 sites (2018: 44 audits at 38 sites). We audited 15 sites with respect to occupational medicine and health protection in 2019 (2018: 22). In addition, 15 health performance control visits were conducted at sites with low to medium health risks (2018: 34). The new sites from the businesses acquired from Bayer in 2018 will be evaluated in 2020 using a simplified audit process following a risk assessment.