BASF first to issue carbon balance for its operations

Berlin – BASF claims tohave become the world’s first company to present a comprehensive carbon balance for its operations. The results, it said, show that BASF products can save three times more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire amount caused by the production and disposal of the company’s products.

The carbon balance shows for the first time not only emissions from BASF’s production, but also takes into account emissions from raw materials and precursors as well as the disposal of all products. In addition, the company has looked at the product lifecycle of 90 key products that save CO2 emissions when used in end products. An independent third party, the Öko-Institut in Freiburg, has reviewed and confirmed BASF’s calculations.

“The enormous potential savings that can be achieved by using innovative technologies and products from BASF are ignored if one looks solely at the emissions from our production sites,” said Dr. Harald Schwager, a BASF board member. “In areas such as construction, automobiles and industrial production, our products help our customers to save more than 250 million metric tons of CO2 worldwide. This is three times as much as is emitted through the production and disposal of all our products."

According to Schwager, BASF aims to maintain or even improve this factor through new products and innovations and by reducing its own emissions. For example, the group is developing technologies and materials for sustainable climate protection and spending around €400 million, -one-third of its total R&D budget - in the areas of energy efficiency, climate protection, resource conservation and renewable raw materials.

By 2020, BASF said it aims to reduce its specific greenhouse gas emissions per tonne of product sold by 25%, compared with 2002. The group also aims to increase the specific energy efficiency of our production processes by 25% by 2020 compared with 2002. "This," said Schwager, "is a very ambitious goal, but also a very important one. We see energy efficiency as the key to combining climate protection, conserving resources and achieving a competitive advantage."

BASF is also to appoint a climate protection officer, who will be a member of BASF’s Sustainability Council and coordinate all group activities in this area worldwide. This will include topics like greenhouse gas emissions from products and disposal of products well as the long-term positioning of BASF in the area of climate protection.