The judges commemorated the project as a highly innovative measurement approach that allows BASF to present a comprehensive carbon balance for their operations. ‘It is important for us that the jury views our carbon balance as a model that can be used in other industries’, said Dr Ulrich von Deessen, BASF’s Climate Protection Officer.
In February 2008, BASF became the first company in the world to present a comprehensive carbon balance covering their entire chemicals business. The results show that BASF products can save three times more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire amount caused by the production and disposal of all the company’s products.
BASF products enable global savings of more than 250 million metric tons of CO2 in areas as diverse as construction, the automotive industry, and industrial production. This is three times more than emitted in the production and disposal of all BASF products.
The total emissions from the sourcing of raw materials and precursors, the manufacture of BASF’s products, and disposal of all products amount to about 87 million metric tons of CO2 equivalents. In short: the greenhouse gas emissions that customers save by using innovative BASF products are three times higher than the total emissions from the manufacture and disposal of all BASF products.
An independent third party, the Öko-Institut in Freiburg, has reviewed and confirmed BASF’s calculations.
