Our Principles and Positions on Political Engagement

Guidelines

Bayer’s Societal Engagement (BASE) Principles provide the basics for all our political engagement and shape the way we interact with stakeholders such as legislators, regulators, and civil society organizations. Our Code of Conduct for Responsible Lobbying provides us with binding rules for our involvement in political matters and creates transparency in our collaboration with representatives of political institutions. Together, both guidelines represent our guiding compass for transparent and fair political engagement and lobbying.
 

Transparency

At Bayer, we go far beyond the statutory requirements of making our political engagement transparent. We publish details of costs, employee numbers, and additional data required by each registry such as in the transparency registers of the European Union, the U.S. Congress, and Germany (published on March 22). In our new dedicated report on political advocacy, we describe our activities, avenues of engagement, as well as disclosures on our expenditures and top advocacy topics in our five largest markets. This report made its debut in 2023 and will be updated annually.

Given our ambitious climate targets, we annually publish our engagement activities to drive climate-friendly policies. In addition, we regularly examine our memberships in relevant industrial associations and their positions and actions affecting climate policy in accordance with our ambitions. Where we find misalignment between our climate ambitions and those of our industry associations, we take measures to bridge that gap. To disclose our successes and the work that still lies ahead, we annually publish our Bayer Climate Advocacy Report.

Political Contributions and Donations

As set out in our Code of Conduct for Responsible Lobbying, Bayer does not make any donations to political parties, politicians, or candidates running for political office.

However, because political contributions in the United States of America are protected by law, some employees choose to donate to Bayer’s U.S. Employee Political Action Committee (known as BAYERPAC) to support legislative candidates. BAYERPAC, like all Political Action Committees (PACs), is highly regulated, and maintains an independent governance board comprised of Bayer employees from across the businesses in the U.S.. The donations made via BAYERPAC are regularly reported to the U.S. Federal Election Commission and publicly available on the Internet.
 

Our Governance for Political Engagement

Public Affairs is part of the Public Affairs, Science & Sustainability and Health, Safety & Environment function. The Global Public Affairs Leadership Team led by the Global Public Affairs Head and compiled by the public affairs heads of the divisions and key countries develops Public Affairs priorities and strategy and is in charge of talent management.

The country officials are responsible for the specific local implementation of political engagement, for being compliance with ethical and legal criteria, and for the creation of transparency. 

Our Political Positions

Bayer engages on a number of different topics, in multiple countries, and with a variety of stakeholders and organizations. We proactively publish political position papers to ensure transparency in our collaboration with stakeholders and decision makers.

Updates to this non-exhaustive list of political positions will continuously be made available. The positions listed below provide an overview of the overarching positions of the company and therefore can be seen as guidelines for our political engagement.