Limited Assurance Report of the Independent Auditor Regarding Sustainability Information ¹

To the Executive Board of BASF SE, Ludwigshafen am Rhein

We have performed an independent limited assurance engagement on the qualitative and quantitative disclosures on sustainability as reference in the GRI Content Index in the “BASF Report 2023”, published under www.bericht.basf.com/2023 (further “Report”) of BASF SE, Ludwigshafen am Rhein (further „BASF“) for the period from January 1 to December 31, 2023.

It was not part of our engagement to review product or services related information, references to external information sources, expert opinions and future-related statements in the Report.

As described in the section “Supplier Management” BASF engaged the external provider EcoVadis to perform audits on suppliers to ensure compliance with environmental, social, and corporate governance standards of the “Together for Sustainability” (TfS) initiative. The adequacy and accuracy of the conclusions from these external assessments were not part of our limited assurance engagement.

Management´s Responsibility for the Report

The legal representatives of BASF are responsible for the preparation of the Report in accordance with the Reporting Criteria. BASF’s Report applies the principles and standard disclosures of the Standards of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard (Scope 1 und 2) as well as the Corporate Value Chain Standard (Scope 3) of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Initiative of the World Resources Institute and of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), the recommendations of the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC), internally developed criteria for the evaluation method Sustainable Solution Steering, for climate protection products and the related avoided emissions as well as for the Health Performance Index as Reporting Criteria (further “Reporting Criteria”).

The responsibility includes the selection and application of appropriate methods to prepare the Report and the use of assumptions and estimates for individual qualitative and quantitative sustainability disclosures which are reasonable under the circumstances. Furthermore, this responsibility includes designing, implementing and maintaining systems and processes that are relevant for the preparation of the Report in a way that is free of – intended or unintended – material misstatements.

Practitioner’s Responsibility

It is our responsibility to express a conclusion based on our work performed within a limited assurance engagement on the qualitative and quantitative disclosures within the scope of our engagement.

We conducted our work in the form of a limited assurance engagement in accordance with the International Standard on Assurance Engagements (ISAE) 3000 (Revised): “Assurance Engagements other than Audits or Reviews of Historical Financial Information” published by International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB). Accordingly, we have to plan and perform the assurance engagement in such a way that we obtain limited assurance as to whether any matters have come to our attention that cause us to believe that the above mentioned sustainability information of the Company for the period from January 1 to December 31, 2023 has not been prepared, in all material respects, in accordance with the aforementioned Reporting Criteria. We do not, however, issue a separate conclusion for each disclosure. As the assurance procedures performed in a limited assurance engagement are less comprehensive than in a reasonable assurance engagement, the level of assurance obtained is substantially lower. The choice of assurance procedures is subject to the auditor’s own judgement.

Within the scope of our engagement, we performed, amongst others, the following procedures:

• Assessment of the process for determining material aspects and corresponding boundaries, including the results from BASF’s stakeholder engagement.
• A risk analysis, including a media research, to identify relevant information on BASF sustainability performance in the reporting period.
• Inspection of the documentation of systems, processes and internal controls of the data reporting system as well as the processing of the data on Group and regional level.
• Inquiries of personnel on corporate level responsible for providing the data and information, carrying out internal control procedures and consolidating the data and information.
• Analytical evaluation and validation of data and trends of quantitative information which are reported by all sites for consolidation on Group level.
• Visiting selected sites to assess the local data collection and validation processes and the reliability of the reported data.
• Inquiries of employees at Group level responsible for the preparation of the chapter contents Sustainability Management, Working at BASF and Social Commitment, Responsibility along the Value Chain as well as Compliance.
• Inspection of internal and external documents to determine whether qualitative and quantitative information is supported by sufficient evidence and presented in an accurate and balanced manner.
• Review of the consistency of GRI Standards in accordance with the sustainability information in the Report provided by BASF.
• Assessing the overall presentation of the sustainability performance information and indicators that fall within the scope of our engagement.

In our opinion, we obtained sufficient and appropriate evidence for reaching a conclusion for the assurance engagement.

Independence and Quality Assurance on Part of the Auditing Firm

In performing this engagement, we applied the legal provisions and professional pronouncements regarding independence and quality assurance, in particular the Professional Code for German Public Auditors and Chartered Accountants (in Germany) and the IDW Standard on Quality Management 1: Requirements for Quality Management in Audit Firms (IDW QMS 1 (09.2022)).

Conclusion

Based on the procedures performed and the evidence obtained, nothing has come to our attention that causes us to believe that the qualitative and quantitative disclosures on sustainability included in the scope of this engagement and published in the Report of BASF SE for the period from January 1 to December 31, 2023, have not been prepared, in all material respects, in accordance with the Reporting Criteria.

Our engagement did not include a material review of product-related or service-related information in the Report or of references to external sources of documentation or expert opinions or forward-looking statements.

Furthermore, the appropriateness and accuracy of the conclusions of EcoVadis, the external company contracted by BASF to ensure compliance with environmental, social and corporate governance standards of the Together for Sustainability (TfS) initiative, was also not part of our audit.

Restriction of Use/Clause on General Engagement Terms

This report is issued for purposes of the Executive Board of BASF SE, Ludwigshafen am Rhein, only. We assume no responsibility with regard to any third parties.

Our assignment for the Executive Board of BASF SE, Ludwigshafen am Rhein, and professional liability as discribed above is governed by the General Engagement Terms for Wirtschaftsprüfer and Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaften (Allgemeine Auftragsbedingungen für Wirtschaftsprüfer und Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaften) in the version dated January 1, 2017 (https://www.kpmg.de/bescheinigungen/lib/aab_english.pdf). By reading and using the information contained in this assurance report, each recipient confirms notice of the provisions contained therein including the limitation of our liability as stipulated in No. 9 and accepts the validity of the General Engagement Terms with respect to us.

Mannheim, February 20, 2024

KPMG AG
Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft
[Original German version signed by:]