Societal Engagement

Through our societal engagement, we want to address the needs of the communities surrounding our production sites worldwide, help achieve the SDGs, and have a positive long-term impact on the environment and society. This is why societal engagement is a cornerstone of our corporate social responsibility. It encompasses the focus areas of health, skills and resources.

We work with partners worldwide to promote public health, for example, to combat malaria. Through our New Nets project in cooperation with The Global Fund, Unitaid and other financial partners, approximately 25 million of our Interceptor^® G2 mosquito nets had been distributed in African countries as of December 2021. These were specially developed to counter insecticide resistance in the fight against malaria and contain two different insecticides. The project goal is to distribute a total of around 35 million nets by the end of 2022.

At the U.N. Food Systems Summit 2021, BASF signed the Zero Hunger Private Sector Pledge and announced that it would invest $11 million in initiatives in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, such as for seed production, malaria prevention and food fortification as well as in smallholder projects. The projects aim to help achieve SDG 2 (Zero hunger) by 2030. Forty-three companies signed the pledge, which is implemented by the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and other international organizations.

As a responsible neighbor and a partner in the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region in Germany, our societal engagement strategy strengthens the participation and integration of disadvantaged groups, and promotes research and discovery.

With Wissensfabrik – Unternehmen für Deutschland e.V., we promote a network of around 130 companies and corporate foundations that sponsor educational institutions and start-ups to support children, young people, students and young entrepreneurs. The focus is on school projects that provide hands-on experience with STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the project’s initiatives (such as IT2School – Gemeinsam IT entdecken and KiTec – Kinder entdecken Technik) were also offered in digital formats, allowing these educational programs to continue even as school operations were restricted. In the new City4Future project launched in early 2022, schoolchildren explore topics related to energy, climate change and sustainability through play and can develop ideas for the urban living space of the future.

In South America, BASF initiated the Connect to Transform open call and has so far supported 48 social and environmental projects, such as the Geração Futura Institute’s Mão na Massa project near our local site in the São Bernardo do Campo region. The project trains women as bakers to promote their financial and personal autonomy.

We aim to create long-term value for BASF and society with new business models and cross-sector partnerships. Our Starting Ventures program helps people from low-income areas to improve their economic opportunities and their quality of life. The program also provides access to new markets and partners, and contributes to reaching the SDGs. A new internal application round for Starting Ventures projects was launched in October 2021. The projects, which aim to help improve local living conditions, then enter the implementation phase. BASF contributes both technical expertise and resources to the projects to address local challenges and contribute to the SDGs. One project under our Starting Ventures program is the Waste-2-Chemicals project in Lagos, Nigeria. Under the project, plastic waste is collected by local residents, sorted and then converted into pyrolysis oil. This pyrolysis oil is used as feedstock in the production of high-quality chemical products. In cooperation with nonprofit organizations, this will enable local waste collectors and their families to earn a regular income.

In the area of international development cooperation, we support the independent charitable BASF Stiftung with donations for its projects in cooperation with various organizations. The 2021 year-end donation campaign in favor of BASF Stiftung supported the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, which celebrated its 75th anniversary. Together with the Indian organization ChildLine and other partners, UNICEF is working to provide psychosocial care for children in India who have had difficulty accessing important services as a result of the pandemic. BASF doubled the donations made by employees of participating German Group companies to a total of around €600,000.

BASF also made donations to support those affected by natural disasters in 2021. In July, BASF donated €1 million to flood relief in Germany, which hit the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate particularly hard. The donation went to the German Red Cross, which was active in these crisis regions. In August, BASF doubled the amount donated by employees at its German sites (€702,668 in total) to around €1.4 million. BASF Stiftung distributed the donations to affected private households and charitable institutions. In September, BASF donated $500,000 to disaster relief following Hurricane Ida and for long-term recovery efforts in Louisiana. Local nonprofit organizations used $300,000 of this amount for emergency relief and reconstruction. In addition, $200,000 went to supporting BASF employees who were directly impacted by the effects of the hurricane.

• More information on Starting Ventures
• More information on societal engagement at our sites
• More information on our societal engagement around the world