Limited Assurance Report of the Independent Auditor Regarding Sustainability Information¹

To the Executive Board of BASF SE, Ludwigshafen am Rhein

We have performed an independent limited assurance engagement on the qualitative and quantitative disclosures on sustainability published in the Online-“BASF Report 2020” (further “Report”) published under http://www.bericht.basf.com/2020/en for the period from
January 1 to December 31, 2020 of BASF SE, Ludwigshafen am Rhein (further „BASF“).

It was not part of our engagement to review product or services related information, references to external information sources, expert opinions and future-related statements in the Report.

As described in the section “Supplier Management” BASF engaged the external provider EcoVadis to perform audits on suppliers to ensure compliance with environmental, social, and corporate governance standards of the “Together for Sustainability” (TfS) initiative. In addition, as described in the section “Responsibility for human rights” audits of Joint Ventures were performed by an external audit firm engaged by BASF to ensure compliance with working and social standards. The adequacy and accuracy of the conclusions from these external assessments were not part of our limited assurance engagement.

Management´s Responsibility for the Report

The legal representatives of BASF are responsible for the preparation of the Report in accordance with the Reporting Criteria. BASF’s Report applies the principles and standard disclosures of the Standards of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard (Scope 1 und 2), the Corporate Value Chain Standard (Scope 3) Standard of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol initiative by the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), the recommendations of the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC), in combination with internally developed criteria for the evaluation method Sustainable Solution Steering, for climate protection products and the related prevented emissions as well as for the Health Performance Index as Reporting Criteria (further “Reporting Criteria”).

The responsibility includes the selection and application of appropriate methods to prepare the Report and the use of assumptions and estimates for individual qualitative and quantitative sustainability disclosures which are reasonable under the circumstances. Furthermore, this responsibility includes designing, implementing and maintaining systems and processes relevant for the preparation of the Report in a way that is free of – intended or unintended – material misstatements.

Practitioner’s Responsibility

It is our responsibility to express a conclusion based on our work performed within a limited assurance engagement on the on the qualitative and quantitative disclosures within the scope of our engagement.

We conducted our work in accordance with the International Standard on Assurance Engagements (ISAE) 3000 (Revised): “Assurance Engagements other than Audits or Reviews of Historical Financial Information” and the International Standard on Assurance Engagements (ISAE) 3410: “Assurance Engagements on Greenhouse Gas Statements” published by IAASB. Accordingly, we have to plan and perform the assurance engagement in such a way that we obtain limited assurance as to whether any matters have come to our attention that cause us to believe that the above mentioned sustainability information of the Company for the period from January 1 to December 31, 2020 has not been prepared, in all material respects, in accordance with the aforementioned Reporting Criteria. We do not, however, issue a separate conclusion for each disclosure. As the assurance procedures performed in a limited assurance engagement are less comprehensive than in a reasonable assurance engagement, the level of assurance obtained is substantially lower. The choice of audit activities is subject to the auditor’s own judgement.

Within the scope of our engagement, we performed, amongst others, the following procedures:

• Inquiries of personnel on corporate level, who are responsible for the materiality analysis, in order to gain an understanding of the processes for determining material sustainability topics and respective reporting boundaries of BASF
• A risk analysis, including a media search, to identify relevant information on BASF sustainability performance in the reporting period
• Reviewing the suitability of internally developed Reporting Criteria
• Evaluation of the design and implementation of the systems and processes for the collection, processing and control of the sustainability disclosures included in the scope of this engagement, including the consolidation of the data
• Inquiries of personnel on corporate level responsible for providing the data and information, carrying out internal control procedures and consolidating the data and information
• Evaluation of selected internal and external documentation
• Analytical evaluation of data and trends of quantitative information which are reported by all sites for consolidation on corporate level
• Evaluation of local data collection and reporting processes and reliability of reported data via a sampling survey at the sites Ludwigshafen am Rhein and Schwarzheide (Germany), Kuantan (Malaysia), Antwerp (Belgium), Port Arthur, Freeport and McIntyre (USA), Yeosu (South Korea).
• Review of the consistency of GRI Standards in-accordance option ‘Comprehensive’ as declared by BASF with sustainability information in the Report
• Assessment of the overall presentation of the disclosures.

In our opinion, we obtained sufficient and appropriate evidence for reaching a conclusion for the assurance engagement.

Independence and Quality Assurance on Part of the Auditing Firm

In performing this engagement, we applied the legal provisions and professional pronouncements regarding independence and quality assurance, in particular the Professional Code for German Public Auditors and Chartered Accountants (in Germany) and the quality assurance standard of the German Institute of Public Auditors (Institut der Wirtschaftsprüfer, IDW) regarding quality assurance requirements in audit practice (IDW QS 1).

Conclusion

Based on the procedures performed and the evidence obtained for the limited assurance, nothing has come to our attention that causes us to believe that the qualitative and quantitative disclosures for the period from January 1 to December 31, 2020 included in the scope of this engagement and published in the Report, are not prepared, in all material respects, in accordance with the Reporting Criteria.

Restriction of Use/Clause on General Engagement Terms

This report is issued for purposes of the Executive Board of BASF SE, Ludwigshafen am Rhein, only. We assume no responsibility with regard to any third parties.

Our assignment for the Executive Board of BASF SE, Ludwigshafen am Rhein, and professional liability as discribed above is governed by the General Engagement Terms for Wirtschaftsprüfer and Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaften (Allgemeine Auftragsbedingungen für Wirtschaftsprüfer und Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaften) in the version dated January 1, 2017 (https://www.kpmg.de/bescheinigungen/lib/aab_english.pdf). By reading and using the information contained in this assurance report, each recipient confirms notice of the provisions contained therein including the limitation of our liability as stipulated in No. 9 and accepts the validity of the General Engagement Terms with respect to us.

Frankfurt am Main, February 23, 2021

KPMG AG
Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft

[Original German version signed by:]