BASF featured in the 2022 Responsible Care Awards Gallery: ‘striving for resource efficiency’
Consumers are increasingly demanding sustainable beauty products and choose brands based on ethical aspects and their environmental responsibility. The preservation of natural resources and ecosystems is essential for BASF. Therefore, BASF has launched the “Responsibly Active program” for its cosmetic active ingredients value chain. It focuses on natural resources, people, and climate.
Based on 40-year track record in developing cosmetic active ingredients, BASF is now equipped with a portfolio of more than 300 items, mainly derived from botanical extracts. Manufacturing these high-performance actives involves valorising 140 botanical species and microorganisms that grow in 40 different countries in five regions of the world.
The first pillar of the program focuses on valorizing botanical side streams that benefit the entire value chain. Thanks to a long-standing commitment, there are eleven products from upcycling processes and by-products in BASF’s portfolio. The valorisation of botanical by-products is a lever to minimize waste and ensure resource efficiency: 1 kg of upcycled botanical by-products is 1 kg that does not need to be grown and processed. This saves water, land space, agricultural inputs and avoids CO2 emissions.
Moreover, the valorisation of botanical by-products enables the diversification of producers’ incomes and thus contributes to the economic development of local communities – a main target of the second pillar of the Responsibly Active program. For some active ingredients, BASF has set up a premium to feed funds that are used locally to finance solidarity actions for the benefit of communities. One example is its Argan program. BASF partnered with Targanine, a network of six Argan cooperatives in Morocco for the supply of argan oil and its by-products under fair trade conditions. More than 1,000 women from rural communities benefit from the program.
Reducing company’s overall environmental and carbon footprint is another essential part of its Responsibly Active program. Thus, in addition to valorising botanical wastes to produce cosmetic active ingredients, BASF also follows a circular approach at its production site in Pulnoy, France, to minimise the environmental impacts of operations: The botanical waste returns to nature in the form of organic amendments for soil nutrition, while the company optimises and reduces the use of water and energy in process and cleaning operations. BASF has identified the best ways to recycle 40 types of waste generated at the site.
Together, the three pillars of the Responsibly Active program contribute to a more resource-efficient, ethically responsible, and climate-friendly botanical value chain, with clear targets by 2030.