Environment Report

In 1989, BASF published its first environment report (for the year under review 1988). In doing so, it became one of the first companies worldwide to report on its environmental efforts. Indeed, the company can look back on the longest tradition of environmental reporting in the chemical industry.

The aim was to also bring the company’s environmental activities into the open, in order to make BASF and its actions more transparent. Although BASF had previously communicated on this topic, this had taken place in a range of different media. By contrast, the new report compiled all this content in a single, clear publication.

The objective of this was clear: “In the past, we have often been accused of not providing enough information on the topic of environmental protection. We take this criticism very seriously and are reacting to it in many ways, one of which is the first publication of this environment report. It will be published annually in the future and you can use it to measure and assess us.” This was the statement made in the foreword to the first issue. For this reason, from the very beginning the environment report contained both an editorial part and a section with statistics, including data and facts that verified what the company had achieved throughout the year.

The environment report was initially limited to the Ludwigshafen site, before being expanded to cover the BASF sites worldwide in 1993. In 1997, the environment report was published for the last time (for the year under review 1996) in its previous form before being expanded to include contents from the Responsible Care initiative the following year. The report was published for the final time in 2003 (year under review 2002) under the title “Umwelt, Sicherheit, Gesundheit” (environment, health & safety report).