Investors representing over $1.25tr in assets under management plan to challenge BASF on climate lobbying at its annual general meeting and will call on the German chemical producer to align lobbying with its stated climate commitments.

The investor group has signalled concern over how BASF, the world’s largest chemical company, has systematically lobbied to undermine EU climate and industrial policy, with efforts to weaken the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) and Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM).

The EU Emissions Trading System, launched in 2005, is a pillar of EU climate policy and one of the main tools to reach net-zero and the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, fully live from January 2026, has triggered a cascade of carbon pricing adoption internationally, with 80 carbon pricing instruments now in place globally, covering 20 per cent of emissions, up from 57 instruments in 2019.

While BASF publicly supports the EU ETS and targets net-zero emissions by 2050, evidence from InfluenceMap reveals a sustained pattern of lobbying to delay and dilute policies that underpin the credibility of the global carbon pricing architecture.

Jackie Garton, senior campaign manager at ShareAction, said: “Excess free allocations under the EU ETS have created a structural incentive to maintain the highly polluting status quo in chemical production. BASF has received far more allowances than it actually needed, profiting from the surplus while European governments forfeited those revenues that could fund decarbonisation. BASF is now lobbying to weaken the very regulations designed to phase these allowances out.”

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