Inclusion of Diversity

The global character of our markets translates into different customer requirements. We want to reflect this diversity among our employees, too, because it enables them to better meet our customers’ needs. For us, diversity means, among other things, having people from different backgrounds working at our company who can draw on their individual perspectives and skills to grow our business. By valuing and promoting employee diversity, we boost our teams’ performance and power of innovation, and increase creativity, motivation and employees’ identification with the company.

Promoting and valuing diversity across all hierarchical levels is an integral part of our strategy and is also embedded in our corporate values. BASF strives to foster a working environment based on mutual respect, trust and appreciation. We expect inclusive conduct from all employees and our leaders. By this, we mean creating an environment in which different aspects of diversity and individual strengths are valued.

Our leaders play an important role in promoting diversity and creating an inclusive work environment. We support them with various offerings, for example as part of leadership development. A toolbox with a wide range of content inspires a change of perspective and a podcast series from leaders shows the importance of appreciative, fair and inclusive leadership.

Integrating different perspectives is very important to BASF. There are a number of Employee Resource Groups around the world dedicated to different aspects of diversity. In addition, we want to create a greater awareness of diversity in our organization with various activities. BASF supports the German Diversity Charter and has participated in German Diversity Day and European Diversity Month with various virtual initiatives and offerings. At our Ludwigshafen site in Germany, we campaigned against racism and discrimination as part of the International Weeks Against Racism.

BASF is one of approximately 150 companies that support the United Nations Global LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bi, trans and intersex) Standards of Conduct for business and has done so since 2018. Employees again promoted openness, acceptance and tolerance with many activities to support the LGBTI movement at various sites around the world in 2021.

Diversity also relates to the company’s demographic profile, which varies widely by region within the BASF Group. Our aim is to create a suitable framework to help maintain the employability of our personnel at all stages of life and ensure the availability of qualified employees over the long term.

BASF Group employee age structure

(Total: 111,047, of which 26.1% women, as of December 31, 2021)

We also promote diversity in the selection and development of our leaders. We have set a global target to promote female leadership and aim to increase the proportion of women in leadership positions to 30% by 2030. We have made important progress toward this and continuously review our target. In the BASF Group, the global proportion of female leaders with disciplinary responsibility was 25.6% at the end of 2021 (2020: 24.3%).

In order to continuously monitor our progress toward this target, we have developed a global dashboard, which is used to regularly review the implementation status. The systematic advancement of women is also an integral part of our process for selecting senior executives.

As a signatory to the United Nations’ Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs), we are committed to promoting gender equality. We are also involved in other external initiatives to promote inclusion of diversity at work, such as the Chefsache initiative and the European Round Table. Employees from all regions took International Women’s Day 2021 as an opportunity to reflect on the current situation of women at BASF, celebrate successes and campaign for greater equality.

• More information on diversity in the Board of Executive Directors and the Supervisory Board
• More information on diversity and inclusion