Despite its size and global presence, BASF has received relatively little public attention since it abandoned the manufacture and sale of BASF-branded consumer electronics products in the 1990s.

Fritz Haber worked with Carl Bosch, one of its employees, to invent the Haber-Bosch process by 1912, after which the company grew rapidly.

Between 1990 and 2005, the company invested €5.6 billion in Asia, specifically in sites near Nanjing, Shanghai and Jiangmen in China and Mangalore in India.

BASF recruited Heinrich Caro, a German chemist with experience of the dyestuff industry in England, to be the first head of research.

[13] Caro developed a synthesis for alizarin (a red dye used for dying textile fabrics) and applied for a British patent on 25 June 1869.

[12] Further patents were granted for the synthesis of methylene blue and eosin, and in 1880, research began to try to find a synthetic process for indigo dye, though this was not successfully brought to the market until 1897.

Under the leadership of Carl Bosch, BASF founded IG Farben with Hoechst, Bayer, and three other companies, thus losing its independence.

[15][16] After the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor in 1933, IG Farben cooperated with the National Socialist government, profiting from guaranteed volumes and prices and, in time, from forced ("unfree") labour provided through governmental concentration camps.

IG Farben became notorious through its production of Zyklon-B, the lethal gas used to kill prisoners in German extermination camps during the Holocaust.

[17] IG Farben made extensive use of forced labor during WWII consisting mostly of drafted "service-duty" Germans, foreign workers from German-occupied territories, and prisoners of war.

Following a change in corporate strategy in 1965, greater emphasis was placed on higher-value products such as coatings, pharmaceuticals, pesticides and fertilizers.

After an extensive reorganisation and an increasing international orientation of the coatings business, Herbol became part of the new founded Deco GmbH in 1997.

Challenging the Geismar OCAW union resulted in a labor dispute that saw members locked out from 1984 to 1989, and eventually winning their case.

[22] The union also exposed major accidental releases of phosgene, toluene and other toxic gases, these being publicized in the local media and through a video, Out of Control.

[29] In May 2015, BASF agreed to sell parts of its pharmaceutical ingredients business to Swiss drug manufacturer Siegfried Holding for a fee of €270 million, including assumed debt.

[30] Since 2016, BASF has partnered with a subsidiary of Xinjiang Zhongtai Group, a company sanctioned under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, to operate a plant in Korla.

CEO Martin Brudermüller held that Chinese revenue is essential to grow his European business in the face of "Europe’s high energy costs and stringent environmental rules.

"[44] With the help of then German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, BASF's Jürgen Hambrecht signed the Gazprom Nord Stream-Yuzhno-Russkoye deal in 2004 with a 49-51 structure, as opposed to the older 50-50 split of for example BP's TNK-BP project.

[48][49] The lawsuit involves a peach farmer who alleged that Dicamba-based herbicides caused significant damage to his crops and trees.

[60] However, overall third quarter profit beat expectations as the acquisition of Bayer AG's agrochemical and seed business help to offset some of the effects of the trade war.

Urethane chemicals are raw materials used in rigid and flexible foams commonly used for insulation in the construction and appliance industries, furniture, packaging, and transportation.

Investments made for insulating materials usually pay for themselves within a short time and contribute to retaining and even enhancing the value of buildings.

Customers are the automotive, oil, paper, packaging, textile, sanitary products, detergents, construction materials, coatings, printing, and leather industries.

[71][72] In 2010 BASF conducted Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs approved trials of genetically modified potatoes in the United Kingdom.

All production lines use common raw material sourcing and feed back waste resources, which can be used elsewhere (e.g. steam of various temperatures, sulfuric acid, carbon monoxide).

[79] The BASF Company and Columbia University formed a partnership to further research "environmentally benign and sustainable energy sources".

The local Department of Natural Resources performed tests in December 2009 showing the chromium levels did not exceed regulatory safety limits.

[82] BASF worked with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (MoDNR) to resolve questions regarding the elevated level of hexavalent chromium that was detected in the effluent from one of its permitted outfalls into the Mississippi River.

[85] BASF works on supporting water, sanitation, education and health programmes as part of its social responsibility commitments.

[86] In a unique program technically supported by Edward & Cynthia Institute of Public Health, BASF implemented Project SAFE ( Safety and Farm Efficiency).