BASF Report 2021 Management’s Report – Our Strategic Action Areas 29 more environmentally friendly agriculture. At the same time, we are the Hollandse Kust Zuid offshore wind farm, which Vattenfall expects We plan to invest €25.6 billion worldwide between now and 2026 driving forward product improvements in all business units that offer to commission in 2023. Together with RWE, we are developing to expand capacities based on market demand and to further our customers sustainability and competitive advantages, such as in a project concept for an offshore wind farm in the North Sea. In increase the availability, efficiency and flexibility of our plants. Our aim lightweight construction and surface solutions for the automotive addition, we have signed long-term purchase agreements for here is to be close to our customers and to grow together with them. industry, bio-based and biodegradable active ingredients for the renewable energy with suppliers such as Ørsted and Engie. For more information on our production sites and the Verbund structure, see page 20 cosmetics, detergent and cleaner industries, and energy-efficient building materials. Another focus is our product portfolio. We already met our 2025 Digitalization For more information on innovation, see page 49 onward target of generating Accelerator sales of €22 billion in 2021. In the future, we want to align our product portfolio even more strongly We want to leverage the diverse growth potential of digitalization Sustainability with climate protection, carbon neutrality and circularity in order to and seize the associated opportunities to the benefit of our custom- meet the growing sustainability demands in our markets with inno- ers. To achieve this, we promote digital skills among our employees, We believe that the economy, environment and society are inex tri- vative solutions. Consequently, we will update our product portfolio cooperate with partners and make digital technologies and ways cably linked and interrelated. We want to create value in all three steering target in 2022. of working an integral part of our business. For example, we had areas with our products, solutions and technologies. We pledged For more information on energy and climate protection, see page 126 onward introduced augmented reality solutions at 340 plants worldwide our commitment to sustainability in 1994 and since then, have For more information on circular economy, see pages 44 and 142 as of the end of 2021. We plan to implement these at more than systematically aligned our activities with the principles of sustain- For more information on Accelerator products und Sustainable Solution Steering, see pages 45 and 141 80 other plants by the end of 2022. ability. We want to further strengthen our position as a thought Production leader in sustainability. We see sustainability as an integral part of Digitalizing our plants and systematically analyzing data enables us our strategy as well as our targets, steering processes and business to further automate processes and in this way, increase the capacity, models. This establishes us as a responsible and attractive partner Our core business is the production and processing of chemicals. availability and efficiency of our plants, for example with predictive supporting our customers, opens up new growth areas and secures Our strength here lies – both now and in the future – in the Verbund maintenance. Linking data from different sources and using artificial the long-term success of our company. Our approach covers the and its integrated value chains. The Verbund offers us many tech- intelligence for smart data analysis opens up numerous opportuni- entire value chain – from responsible procurement and safety and nological, market, production-related and digital advantages. Our ties for us to manage our business more efficiently and improve our resource efficiency in production to sustainable solutions for our comprehensive product portfolio, which ranges from basic chemi- processes, for example in logistics. customers. cals to tailored system solutions, enables us to meet the increasingly diverse needs of our customers with a differentiated offering. This The combination of products, services and digital offerings also Since 1990, we have almost halved our carbon emissions while is complemented by our global presence, coupled with our many opens up new business models and advantages for our customers, simultaneously doubling sales product volumes. By 2030, we want decades of experience, which have allowed us to develop an such as in agriculture or 3D printing. In addition, digitalization enables 1 to reduce our absolute CO emissions by 25% compared with in-depth understanding of the needs and landscape of local us to further strengthen our innovative power. BASF has one of the 2 2018 and will invest up to €4 billion to this end. By 2050, we aim to markets. most powerful supercomputers in the chemical industry – Quriosity. achieve net zero emissions from our production sites and our energy It can be used to significantly accelerate complex computational purchases. We are pursuing ambitious climate protection targets Our integrated Verbund structure enables efficient, reliable and processes such as the simulation of molecules, enabling new with our carbon management. This comprises five strategic levers carbon- optimized steering of our production activities. In 2021, for chemi cal products to be developed more quickly, for example. that we are systematically driving forward to reduce our greenhouse example, we avoided 7.3 million metric tons of CO worldwide At the same time, we are already working on groundbreaking 2 gas emissions (see page 27). To increase the share of renewables through the intelligent networking of our plants and combined heat tech nologies such as quantum computing, including as a founding in our energy supply, for instance, we entered into pioneering and power generation. coopera tion agreements in 2021. For example, we hold a share in 1 In March 2021, we replaced our previous target of CO -neutral growth until 2030 (baseline 2018: 21.9 million metric tons of CO e) with a new, more ambitious climate protection target to reduce absolute CO emissions by 25% compared with 2018 (new target: 16.4 million metric tons of CO e). 2 2 2 2