Our Targets

We carry out our corporate purpose, “We create chemistry for a sustainable future,” by pursuing ambitious goals along our entire value chain. In this way, we aim to achieve profitable growth and take on social and environmental responsibility. This also helps to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).¹ We are focusing on issues where we as a company can make a significant contribution, such as sustainable consumption and production, climate action or fighting hunger.

Learn more about our targets as of 2019

The new targets will apply from 2019 onward and will replace our previous goals. In this way, we want to steer our business into a sustainable future and, at the same time, contribute to the implementation of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Financial targets

Grow sales volumes faster than global chemical production every year

Increase EBITDA before special items by 3% to 5% per year

Achieve a return on capital employed (ROCE)¹ considerably above the cost of capital percentage every year

Increase the dividend per share every year based on a strong free cash flow

¹Return on capital employed (ROCE) is a measure of the profitability of our operations. We calculate this indicator as the EBIT generated by the segments as a percentage of the average cost of capital basis.

Nonfinancial targets

Grow CO₂-neutrally until 2030

Achieve €22 billion in Accelerator sales¹ by 2025

Cover 90% of our relevant spend² with sustainability evaluations by 2025, and have 80% of our suppliers improve their sustainability performance upon re-evaluation

More than 80% of our employees feel that at BASF, they can thrive and perform at their best

Reduce the worldwide lost-time injury rate per 200,000 working hours to ≤0.1 by 2025

Reduce worldwide process safety incidents per 200,000 working hours to ≤0.1 by 2025

Introduce sustainable water management at all production sites in water stress areas and at all Verbund sites by 2030

Increase the proportion of women in leadership positions with disciplinary responsibility to 30% by 2030³.

¹Accelerator products are products that make a substantial sustainability contribution in the value chain.
²We understand relevant spend as procurement volumes with suppliers defined as relevant.
³Adaptation 2020.