Let’s be honest – there’s an awful lot of hooey out there about Purpose?

In contrast, I love something short, specific and memorable

“We create chemistry” provides a North Star for everyone to pursue. And when I got to Mainheim, I realised just how many that might be – imagine for a moment a site that is 10 square kilometres ‘making chemistry’, employing 32,000 people!

BASF, headquartered in Ludwigshafen, is the world’s largest chemical company. Founded in 1865 as Badische Aniline und Soda Fabrik, the Ludwigshafen factory produced synthetic dyes.

In 1913 a new plant was built at Oppau, 3km beyond Ludwigshafen, to produce fertilisers. It was here in 1921 that the largest peacetime catastrophe in Germany occurred, when an explosion killed 565 people.

The plant was subject to heavy bombing during the Second World War. Subsequent rebuilding and infilling between the two plants to produce plastics has resulted in the world’s largest integrated chemical plant.

Internal transport systems include buses, trains and a fleet of red cycles with silver mudguards.