Measuring Sustainable Value Added

We are aware that our business activities can have both positive and negative impacts on the environment and society. We aim to increase our positive contributions and minimize the negative impacts of our business activities. To achieve this, we need to understand how our actions and our products impact society and the environment.

We already have many years of experience in this area from evaluating our products and processes using methods such as Eco-Efficiency Analyses, the SEEbalance^® Socio-Eco-Efficiency Analysis, our Sustainable Solution Steering portfolio analysis, BASF’s corporate carbon footprint or the calculation of Product Carbon Footprints.

We want to holistically capture the value we contribute to society along the value chain and make this transparent. However, there are still no uniform, global standards for measuring and reporting on companies’ overall impact that cover economic, environmental and social aspects of business activities along the value chain. This is why we developed the Value to Society method in 2013 together with external experts. We can use this methodological approach to compare the significance of financial and sustainability-related impacts of our business activities on society and show their interdependencies. The results illustrate the positive contributions and negative effects, both at BASF and in our value chains. Positive factors include taxes paid, wages, social benefits, employee training and our net income.¹ Negative contributions include environmental impacts such as carbon emissions, land use and emissions to air, soil and water, as well as health and safety incidents. The positive impacts of our economic activities declined in 2020,² primarily due to the economic conditions caused by the coronavirus pandemic, which led to lower economic value added. In addition, higher water consumption and increased land use in supplier and customer industries had a greater impact on the environment.

Overall, the Value to Society method helps us to continually monitor our progress. It complements existing concepts for assessing risks and business opportunities by providing a macro perspective and enables us to derive the necessary business steps.

We are a founding member of the value balancing alliance e.V. (VBA) and have contributed our knowledge and experience to this cross-industry initiative. We support the development of an accounting and reporting standard that makes the value companies provide to society transparent and comparable. The aim is to present the financial, ecological, and social impacts of business activities on the basis of a standardized framework. The VBA is supported by major auditing firms, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), leading universities and other partners. Together with the OECD and the Business for Inclusive Growth (B4IG) coalition, we are pushing to further expand the social indicators. Here, BASF leads the Impact Measurement working group together with partners. Through the VBA, we are involved in the E.U.’s Platform on Sustainable Finance. Together with the VBA and other partners, we supported the establishment of the International Sustainability Standard Board (ISSB), are involved in the work of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and are part of the G7 Impact Taskforce. Our Corporate Finance unit is also involved in the work of the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group’s (EFRAG) Project Task Force on European sustainability reporting standards.

The method developed by the VBA was enhanced and refined on the basis of feedback from the scientific community and member companies. Amendments include the addition of two social indicators and the calculation of downstream impacts, as well as revisions to financial indicators, for example. This enhanced method will again be piloted by all member companies and the results will be fed back to the VBA for further development.

• More information on this method and the results of Value to Society
• More information on our sustainability tools
• More information on value balancing alliance e.V.