Sustainability the word at BASF summit

The concept of sustainability is not new to the golf industry, where GCSAA's Environmental Institute for Golf is now leading Golf's Drive Toward Sustainability, an effort on behalf of multiple golf organizations to create Best Management Practices that encompass the entire golf facility.

However, GCSAA/EIFG isn't the only player in golf to take a sustainable approach to its business, and that couldn't have been emphasized more than at the recent BASF media summit, "A Grounded Approach to Agricultural Sustainability," held in Chicago.

Most of the leadership of the Ludwigshafen, Germany-based company was on hand to give print, Web and broadcast media an overview of BASF's 14-year-old sustainability efforts, and to discuss producer and industry collaboration on sustainability, as well as measuring it, continuous improvement in it and the differing public and industry perceptions of the word.

Setting the tone of the summit was BASF crop production division head Markus Heldt, who described sustainability as "our license to operate in the long term," and noted that the company spends more than $1 billion a year on research and development of sustainable products, including those in the turf and ornamental markets.

Also interesting to note is the company's philosophy that it is always "working toward" sustainability rather than achieving it. This message dovetails with Golf's Drive Toward Sustainability, as does BASF's view that in order to be sustainable its products must be not only environmentally friendly and profitable, but also socially acceptable. That echoes the EIFG effort, which the Institute says is aimed at "people, planet, profit."

 Fourteen years ago, BASF implemented what it called "eco-efficiency," which centered around creating eco-friendly products that according to the company provided better efficiency and made a smaller impact on the environment. That effort has now evolved, company officials said in Chicago, into "AgBalance," which includes a social component, essentially giving equal weight in the planning and production process to the social implications of a product, as well and the financial and environmental results.

Sustainability is "a journey, it's not a destination," Jan Buberl, BASF's director of specialty products (pictured above, courtesy of BASF), told the assembled media, which also learned that both Honor and Insignia fungicides, already established in BASF's product line, will be rebranded because of the discovery that both labels have previously unrealized plant-health benefits in the form of drought tolerance.

According to BASF, trials at the University of Georgia have shown that bentgrass treated with Honor -- a pyraclostrobin/boscalid combination -- exhibited improved root growth, thus requiring less water. The same was seen in Insignia, and both will become part of the company's Intrinsic brand.

There is no contradiction in a chemical company -- even one that bills itself as "The Chemical Company" -- touting sustainability, Buberl told GCM. "We are very, very convinced that there is no contradiction," he noted, "between sustainability and chemistry. We need chemistry to be sustainable, and if that means we need less active ingredient to use, that's perfect for us." Innovation will, he said, provide the spark, that will keep new products in line with the company's sustainable philosophy.

How will the company define the success of it sustainability efforts? Again, Buberl, returned to the "journey, not a destination" metaphor. But he was adamant when asked what sustainability is not. "Sustainable is not green," he said, "that is a very clear message. "