Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our R&D webcast. It's a pleasure to have you join us online. We are streaming this event from Ludwigshafen. A replay will later be available. Let me share further organizational details. Today's presentation contains forward-looking statements that may not prove to be accurate. We do not assume any obligation to update these forward-looking statements above and beyond the legal requirements. Now it is my pleasure to introduce Dr. Melanie Maas -Brunner to you. Melanie started at Aachen University, where she received her PhD in chemistry in 1995 before joining BASF in 1997. She has held various roles in BASF, ranging from production and research and also business management in Germany and also in Hong Kong, especially in the plastics value chain, I may add. Since February, this year, she's member of the Board of Executive Directors, and she's Chief Technology Officer role that she took over from Martin Brudermüller. Her current responsibilities include the 23 research divisions and the BASF New Business, the corporate environmental protection, health and safety unit, the European science and patent management, and global engineering services. Melanie, now the floor is yours. We look forward to your presentation, Sustainability Starts in Research. Thanks, Stephanie, for the very kind introduction. Ladies and gentlemen, a very warm welcome to this year's R&D webcast. This is my first in the role of Chief Technology Officer. I am passionate about research and our innovation. As this is my very first interaction with investors and analysts, I hope this comes across in this virtual format. I look forward to the Q&A session with you following my presentation. The Earth's average temperature has already risen by 1.1 degrees Celsius compared to the pre-industrial era. We are quickly approaching 1.5 degrees. Global climate change is human-induced, states the sixth IPCC Assessment Report. It's becoming increasingly clear climate change is the greatest challenge of the twenty-first century. Quick and decisive action is needed now, as this is the only way to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement. We are aware of our responsibility. We at BASF support the Paris Agreement's target of limiting global warming to less than two degrees Celsius. The international community needs to address many issues simultaneously, climate protection, the use of limited resources, and providing the growing global population with food, water, and energy. These are all tremendous challenges. At the same time, we live in an age with many groundbreaking innovations. The energy transformation is progressing faster and faster thanks to technological advances in solar and wind energy generation, as well as in the use of electrical energy. The kilowatt-hour cost of solar or wind electricity are falling. There are very rapid improvements in battery technology, such as in electric vehicles. Another field of research also puts me in an optimistic mood, quantum computing. It will launch a chain of disruptive innovations that will fundamentally change the chemical industry in the long term. We will be able to develop new products much faster. This technology makes it easier for us to model chemical reactions and molecular properties. In future, we will also be able to access the larger molecules. This is why BASF has joined the QUTAC Consortium. Quantum technology is the way of the future, and we want to use this technology in industrial applications. At BASF, innovations have always been the key to success. They enable us to transform our company and offer our customers products that are more sustainable, supporting their differentiation in their specific markets. For us, innovation is between research and development. The know-how of our highly qualified staff is our most valuable resource and the foundation of our innovation strength. We are focusing on developing sustainable solutions for our customers to help them to reduce their carbon footprint, use resources more efficiently, or manufacture products in a more eco-friendly way, enabling a circular economy. This is how we safeguard our competitiveness in the long term, and we make our contribution to society with it. We have a very unique research and development team. Worldwide, around 10,000 employees working in research and development. Many of whom are based here in Ludwigshafen, but also in the U.S., in China, and in different other places. We have continuously expanded this regional presence in the recent year. This enables us to react faster to regional growth trends. We invest around EUR 2 billion per year to develop new products, new fields of technology, new competencies. We can generate annual sales of around EUR 10 billion with products launched on the market in the past 5 years that stemmed from R&D activities. To secure long-term success, we must further strengthen our customer proximity to leverage the values of our know-how potential. By this, I mean our technologies and the broad knowledge of our employees. To become even better, we will be reorganizing our central research activities next year. Research units, which previously belonged to one of the three Group Research divisions, will be embedded in the operating divisions. This will put them in an even better position to cater to the needs of our customers. Our aim is to further shorten the time to market for new products and to accelerate the company's organic growth. Many of our customer industries have very specific requirements. For example, in the automotive personal care industry, new solutions from the laboratory and their application testing are very closely linked in these business areas. This integration will help us to react even more quickly to trends in these fast-moving markets. Research activities that are relevant to several operating divisions will be funded in the central research division headquartered in Ludwigshafen. This division will keep a global footprint with a presence in all regions. It will be aligned with our focus areas. As a result, we will create synergies and a stronger foundation for market trends. Developing new competencies is an ongoing task for us. For example, when it comes to further reducing our carbon footprint, developing concepts for biodegradable plastics, or using digital tools more effectively. Ladies and gentlemen, we are and want to stay the innovation leader in the market. I have told you how our organizational realignment will contribute to this. Our corporate purpose, we create chemistry for a sustainable future, guides our actions. We have set ourselves an ambitious goal for 2030. We want to reduce our absolute CO2 emissions by 25% compared to the level of 2018. By 2050, we aim to achieve net zero emissions at BASF. At the end of November, we announced that we are stepping up our efforts with a new project organization and the establishment of a unit called Net Zero Accelerator. This powerful structure will support us in our transformation. We have also set ourselves ambitious goals for our circular economy program. By 2035, we want to process around 250,000 metric tons of recycled raw materials each year. We aim to increase our sales of circular solutions to EUR 17 billion by 2030. It is double the current share, by the way. An important steering instrument for our product portfolio is the Sustainable Solution Steering method. This is based on the sustainability performance of our products. In the following, I will give you one research example for each of these focus areas, climate protection, circular economy, and our Sustainable Solution Steering. Chemistry requires vast amounts of energy. This energy currently comes primarily from fossil fuels. We have continuously further developed our plants and processes and have nearly exhausted the potential for CO2 reduction. We are reaching the technical limits. That is why we need completely new technologies and processes. One of these technologies is methane pyrolysis. When powered by green electricity, it is the key technology for CO2-free hydrogen in the coming decades. In our R&D webcast in 2019, Martin Brudermüller told you about our research into splitting methane into carbon and hydrogen. At that time, we had just tested an entirely new reactor concept in the laboratory. He talked about the challenges related to electric heating. We now took the next major step in the pandemic time, 2020, 2021, the construction and commissioning of our test plant in Ludwigshafen. This plant is now running in trial operations. This is really a milestone for us. I want to say thanks to the very dedicated BASF team. They have done a fabulous job in these challenging times. There are now two challenges to overcome. The first is mastering the process technology with the electric heating and the use of novel materials with high temperature resistance in this reactor. The reactor can reach temperatures of up to 1,400 degrees Celsius. The second challenge is the right process control. This means finding out what the right operating window is for this specific reactor. CO2 neutral methane pyrolysis will contribute to sustainability and will be economically viable. We are convinced of this, and it will help to combat climate change. Until we get that far, we still have hard work to do and some hurdles to overcome. Our next milestone will be the scale-up. We want to achieve industrial application before 2030 already. Our climate is changing, and one of the crucial questions is, will it be possible to develop the urgently needed technologies to keep carbon, an important raw material, in circulation? The aim is to transform the carbon contained in industrial off gases into valuable chemicals. Together with partners, we have already achieved a first success. Today, industrial off-gases are primarily incinerated or thermally recovered to produce electricity and steam. In steam. In both cases, CO2 is emitted. Our goal is to avoid these emissions and to recycle the main components of the off-gas so they can be used in energy production. Our researchers have been working on this since 2018 with the American startup, LanzaTech. This year, they made a breakthrough. With the help of special bacteria, they were able to produce n-butanol for the first time from carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The alcohol n-butanol is used in cosmetics, for example. Normally, microorganisms can't produce n-butanol because it is toxic to them. With the biotech methods, LanzaTech was able to program the organisms in such a way that they can produce and tolerate n-butanol during fermentation. In parallel, our BASF researchers developed a process that enables N-octanol to be continuously separated and purified. They have successfully put this into practice in the lab already now. Now let's come to the Green Deal. For a successful Green Deal, we want and must achieve climate neutrality in the future. Not only that. The EU goals will not be reachable without the chemical industry, because we offer innovations for a more sustainable life. I would like to give you one example from our research in the area of biodegradable and bio-based materials. This is an example of innovative solutions that contribute to the Green Deal agenda. The circular economy and sustainability are increasingly important, including for our customers. For example, in the detergents and formulators industry. That is why teams at BASF are working on the questions of how to best combine strong cleaning performance with good environmental compatibility. The focus is on new ingredients made from bio-based raw materials, which can biodegrade at the end of their productive life cycle. This requires new approaches in research and development. Together with academic partners, we are pursuing various projects to develop a fundamental understanding of how biodegradation processes occur under different conditions. To this end, we are synchronizing the results of laboratory and field research. With the additional integration of new digital tools as well as faster screening and test methods, we can reduce our development times and develop high performance, environmentally sound ingredients. This is true not only for cleaning products, but also for cosmetics and industrial applications such as agrochemicals. The chemical industry plays a central role in the transformation towards a climate neutral society. One reason is because the industry currently emits relatively large amounts of CO2. Another reason is that its innovative products will be especially needed in the future. These include materials for solar cells and wind turbines, battery materials for e-mobility, insulation materials, and robust materials to protect against increasingly extreme weather. Chemical products are also indispensable in other areas of daily life. For example, in the pharmaceuticals or in agriculture. At the research press conference this morning, our experts presented innovations from two areas, electric mobility and agriculture. This afternoon, I would like to focus on e-mobility as the examples nicely complement the insights we shared with you during the recent investor update. The automotive industry, you all know, is undergoing a massive shift owing to the transformation of the powertrain and the transition from internal combustion engines to e-mobility. We expect that by 2030, around 30% of all cars produced worldwide will be either fully electric vehicles or plug-in hybrids. This share will continue to increase significantly after 2030. For BASF, this offers major opportunities because the chemical content per vehicle will increase substantially. We anticipate that it will rise by a factor of 2.5 in a fully electric vehicle as compared to a car with an internal combustion engine. The largest share of this added value will be in the battery business. This transformation is very important for our company because the automotive industry is our key customer industry. Around 10% of BASF's group sales are currently associated with the automotive industry. In recent decades, we have proven that we are a strong solution supplier for the automotive industry, and we want to continue to be. The battery is the heart of every electric vehicle. We use an extensive toolbox of different methods to improve the performance, reliability, and sustainability of batteries. My colleague, Markus Kamieth, presented our activities in battery materials during the investor update on September 27. Therefore, I will now focus on plastics, coolants, and coatings. Plastics are indispensable in e-mobility. Plastics play a role in lightweight construction, heat conductivity, heat management, and of course, safety. The share of plastics will also increase amid the transition to fully electric powertrains. In addition, BASF is developing new engine coolants. The battery electric vehicle will require roughly twice as much coolant as a car with an internal combustion engine. Yes, one particular challenge with electric vehicles is the formation of flammable hydrogen must be prevented in the event that coolant comes into contact with high voltage battery components, as could happen in the case of an accident. Lowering the electrical conductivity of the coolant is key to success here. One more important topic, corrosion protection. With the help of digital simulation, we have developed a cathodic dip coating tailored to the specification of electric vehicles. It protects the car body from corrosion and at the same time helps to lower CO2 emissions in production. This is good news for sustainable mobility. I will now present the selected innovation examples from our Performance Materials, Performance Chemicals, as well as other installations. Given the nature of electric vehicles, high voltage transmitting components enable safe distribution of power. In electric cars, these components must be highlighted in bright orange. As you can see here, the connectors depicted on the slide. This is important visual cue for car drivers and mechanics to help avoid accidental short circuits or electric shocks. The automotive industry requires that this color remains stable after being exposed to 140 degrees Celsius for 1,000 hours. Considering the heat that components must endure during the lifetime of a car, this is really the best. Polyamides are one of the standard materials used for high-voltage connectors in electric cars. However, the chemical nature of polyamides leads to a severe discoloration when the material is exposed to heat over long periods of time. On the right side, you can see the variations of color of the standard polyamide and how it can turn brown at elevated temperatures over time. Our scientists have found a way to achieve long-lasting color durability at elevated temperatures. We developed a new formulation based on polyamide and a thermally stable pigment. This breakthrough represents the next level of color stability in polyamide formulations. In a nutshell, our durable color Ultramid portfolio supports safe handling of high-voltage components by car owners and mechanics. Let's look at the next example. Safety from the driver's and passenger's perspectives. Battery-powered vehicles tend to have shorter front ends. The heavy battery needs to be protected. Furthermore, the weight and impact mass of an electric vehicle is higher overall compared to a conventional car. This all requires new safety concepts. Our R&D teams have contributed many solutions, including plastic front ends with especially high energy absorption. They are made of polyamide and glass fiber. The absorbers serve two purposes. They take up momentum in the event of a crash and channel the impact energy into the designated areas of the vehicle. When developing the absorber, our researchers applied our digital simulation tool called Ultrasim to model the best material composition and component design. Our scientists have also developed structural parts in carbon mixed with polyamide particle foam. OEMs can produce these in complex three-dimensional shapes using standard particle foam molding processes. The polyamide foams keep their form even under high temperature. This allows them to be attached in the car even before the dip coating. This effectively reduces the need for an additional process step afterwards, which helps the OEMs, obviously, saving time and resources. Flexible polyurethanes and thermoplastic profiles are extraordinarily stiff and help keep the foam around the battery intact in case of an impact. They are also stiffened with glass fiber. These BASF innovations enable the next safety level for electric vehicles in the event of a crash. The plastic materials are a lot lighter than metal, for example. This helps minimize the weight of the vehicle while maintaining high safety standards. Now let's move on to coolants. Battery is the highest value part in an electric vehicle and is the key driver of its performance. A robust, finely tuned thermal management system is required to help protect the battery and ensure its longevity. This is where coolants come into play. I mentioned earlier that the chemical content in electric vehicles is higher than in conventional cars. This also holds true for coolants. We are talking about a two-fold increase in terms of volume here. The reason is simple. In contrast to an internal combustion engine, where the area that needs to be cooled is rather small, the battery extends across almost the entire underside of an electric vehicle. In addition, the electric engine needs to be cooled. This means to achieve optimal operation of the vehicle, car manufacturers need to ensure specific temperatures across a large area. A network of cooling plates or pipes ensures that the coolant can reach all relevant parts of the battery. These are the basic requirements for thermal management of an electric vehicle. There's another crucial aspect related to coolant in battery-powered vehicles. If the coolant comes into contact with high-voltage battery components, for example, after a crash, there is the risk that hydrogen will be generated. Essentially, the water in the coolant may decompose into hydrogen and oxygen while the electric current from battery components. This is maybe one experience you remember from high school. The production of oxyhydrogen gas, mixture of hydrogen and oxygen. This is something you don't want to have happen. The trick is to decrease the electric conductivity of the glycol-water system that makes up the coolant. If you look at the left side on the slide, you see how the new BASF coolant, GLYSANTIN ELECTRIFIED, compares to conventional coolants. An automotive OEM would ideally want the coolant to reach the maximum performance in all the categories. This means it needs to reach the outermost boundaries in all corners of the graph. Conventional coolants perform very well in terms of low flammability, low viscosity, high thermal capacity and conductivity, and excellent material compatibility. The term material compatibility refers, among other things, to how well the coolant protects the coolant circuits from corrosion. However, conventional coolants perform poorly when it comes to electrical conductivity, meaning they show very high electrical conductivity, therefore transmitting electrical current at a rate that is too high. GLYSANTIN ELECTRIFIED is markedly less conductive for electricity, and it still performs very well in all other categories. This is not easy because weakening the coolant impacts other favorable characteristics. Each layer was the result of thorough R&D work. Our experts achieved a low electrical conductivity by using non-ionic surfactants and a lower polarity solvent, which simultaneously ensures that the coolant circuit is well protected from corrosion. With GLYSANTIN ELECTRIFIED, our researchers could significantly reduce the risk of hydrogen generation by an impressive 98%, as you can see on the right of the slide. The Performance Chemicals division introduced GLYSANTIN ELECTRIFIED to the market this year. With this innovation, we help improve the safety of the battery and contribute to reducing the risk of dangerous situations like overheating, fires or explosions in electric vehicles. Moving on now to an example from our Coatings division. Every car owner wants protection against rusting and corrosion. This is also important for the structural stability of the vehicle and a key determinant of its lifespan. Unsurprisingly, the requirements for battery-powered cars from OEMs also differ here. For safety reasons, the rocker panels and sills, essentially the base of the vehicle, can feature thicker metal than a conventional vehicle. This has implications for the process in which the corrosion protection is applied. During this process, the car frame is dipped into a composite electrocoat or E-coat. Afterwards, the metal of the chassis is heated up to ensure the cross-linking of the various E-coat components on its surface. This is crucial to achieve the full level of corrosion protection. Thicker metal takes longer to heat up. If you were to simply apply the corrosion protection used for conventional cars, this could lead to an uneven protection of the electric car's individual parts. In this context, it is important to know that car manufacturers apply dip coating for all types of vehicles on the same manufacturing line. The challenge for our R&D team was to offer one paint solution that works for all vehicles. Deploying smart tools, they ran several digital simulations to help accelerate the development. We can now offer our customers our new CathoGuard technology featuring increased reactivity. This means that the crucial cross-linking happens at lower metal temperatures. This has been achieved by optimizing the dispersion, pigment paste, components of the product. In addition, this is a very important achievement. There is no compromise when it comes to BASF's high sustainability standards. Our new CathoGuard technology offers an additional sustainability benefit. Due to its higher reactivity, OEMs can reduce the oven temperature for the dip coating process by 20 degrees Celsius. The painting process can also be shortened. If you compare the left and the right graph, you can see that our technology works at a much broader range of temperatures. The areas highlighted in orange indicate other range of temperatures at which the technology can still work, but must be tested on the OEM's manufacturing line. The shaded area at the bottom indicates the area meeting the specifications for corrosion protection in the interior of the vehicle. The requirements here are different, since these car parts are not as exposed to the environment as the exterior of the vehicle. Please note that these graphs show the temperature of the metal. The temperature in the oven will be about 15-20 degrees Celsius higher. Today, metals are usually heated up to 155-160 degrees Celsius. Our CathoGuard technology enables the process to be run with a metal temperature of only 140 degrees. We are thus offering a lever to reduce the energy required in the process with a positive impact on CO₂ emissions. With this technology, CO₂ emissions can be reduced by up to 25% per unit in this process step, depending a little bit on the curing temperature and time. Our teams are already working on a new concept that will further increase the reactivity and further reduce the required energy. This slide shows a selection of products and solutions we have in our pipeline specifically for electric mobility. As you can see, we have already launched new products in 2021. Over the next years, more of the innovations I presented today will become available. There will be more solutions to come. As the largest chemical supplier to this automotive industry, our expertise and networks enable us to anticipate new trends and have a head start when it comes to developing new industry standards. This is a key driver for growth. Together with the battery materials business, we are continuously expanding. To conclude my speech, I would like to return to my opening statement. Tremendous challenges have to be mastered simultaneously, and time is of the essence. This means we must now boldly tackle the transformation of the economy and society, rely on innovations, and stay open to new technologies. This is the path we are taking resolutely and systematically. Research and development is the core of BASF, and we have an incredible, great team. This makes me very optimistic. Now I'm looking forward to taking your questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we would like to move on to the Q&A session. To ask a question, analysts and investors are encouraged to enter their questions into the chat tools below the live stream. We will read out the questions to the Q&A participants. Please make sure that your questions are related to the topics we presented today in this R&D webcast. Let me also introduce Dr. Detlef Kratz, who joins us on stage for the Q&A session. Detlef studied chemistry at the University of Heidelberg, where he received his PhD in 1991. One year later, in 1992, he joined BASF, has had various positions, operational roles, technology and strategy roles. Since November 2018, he is President Process Research and Chemical Engineering, and he is the designated president for the new central research division that will be established in Q2 2022. I would like to open the Q&A, and the first question is from Christian Faitz, Kepler Cheuvreux. BASF has always had central research functions in my recollection. With the reorganization, by how much on the headcount will the central research set up grow? What is the current status there? I think you could both answer this question. Let me answer and then I hand over to Detlef. Nowadays we have 10,000 people working in research and development. When we do now the embedding in the operating divisions, around about 1,800 people will move from those former central divisions into the operating divisions. The new central platform will consist of around about 3,500 chemists and researchers and developers and supportive people. I better hand over to Detlef to explain what the central platform is actually doing. Yes. Thank you, Melanie. As mentioned, the central platform will have 3,500 employees. Fundamentally, we talked about it, one division, if you have the R&D part, it will mainly be research part, so the core work PST does, but it will also be the enabling unit, because everybody will need units such as analytics, toxicology, scale-up of pilot plant. This will be the core of what we do, and that is chemists, engineers, toxicologists, biologists. Also, for example, the biotechnology part that we were talking about today will be included, including the scale up. The whole idea is actually to have a whole innovation value chain from idea all the way to process and finally to the customer. That, of course, is based on the competencies that we then have bundled in this one unit. I have another question from Christian Faitz, Kepler Cheuvreux. He's curious about Quriosity, so I'll read out. BASF made big steps in computing a few years ago with the supercomputer, Quriosity. Has this paid out or off for you, as Quriosity was mainly also geared at research and development functions. How easily can you upgrade this computer with the newest computing power? Yeah, let me start again. I think Quriosity is really a great tool, and it's really used heavily by the researchers. It helps in modeling paths, modeling difficult systems. It helps in speeding up when calculating something. It also helped, by the way, in the COVID crisis by supporting different external partners in developing something that might help with the COVID crisis. It's fully booked, and we are now on the way of deciding to add CPU capacity, and this is also maybe answering the question. This will also enhance the capability of the Quriosity computer. Nothing to add? Fine. The next question is from Andrew Stott, UBS. Thanks for the presentation in revenue terms. Where do you think you have the most scope from your project pipeline in e-mobility? Is it plastics, coolants or something? We haven't quantified, but perhaps you can give a qualitative indication. I'm a little bit coming from the plastics arena, and I think the e-mobility wheels first, plastics, and then comes the rest. Short answer, but very precise. The next question is from Sebastian. The question was on the largest CO2 reduction potential. Yeah. I would like to differentiate the question a little bit. One is direct operational excellence has the quickest impact in terms of the amount of energy, CapEx and OpEx we require to reduce CO2. It's huge at BASF because we have so many potential plants. All the savings of the past, and many, came exactly from that. That's one bucket. We still focus it also in the new central division, because this is where the operational excellence ideas comes from. The other one is fundamentally looking at the biggest CO2 emitters, and it is the steam cracker right at the beginning of the value chain, the hydrogen, which is connected to ammonia. Those two alone make the biggest bars. Hydrogen, and to give you an indication, has a potential of about 3 million tons of CO2 savings. If you put that into perspective, Melanie mentioned our ambition of 25% coming from the 22 we have now, this would be a huge achievement and a huge lever to do that. Wherever the hydrogen goes. That is one, and the other is the steam cracker. Then comes the whole value chain, which we also focus on, but which is, let's say, a little bit more fundamental in changing the technologies. Those two are the big ones. We have another question from Andreas Heine, Stifel. How much will the share of good sales to the automotive industry be by the end of the decade? Which polymer materials benefit most from the new properties required in EVs? Which polymers might see a lower demand? Yeah, let me take this. I think I mentioned in the presentation that the chemical demand in value terms is 2.5 times higher in an EV than in a combustion engine. This you can compare a little bit to EUR 12 trillion sales that we are right now doing, what kind of potential could that be worth while it's opening up for us. On the plastic questions, I think the plastic portfolio we have in hand right now is a well-suited portfolio also for the e-mobility. We just have to tweak, and I showed one example there, here, a little bit here and there, to make this also usable and beneficial for EVs. It's like the color example I mentioned, or like the plastic as protective material for the lower part of the car. I think we have the right portfolio, a bit limited, so we don't have to change in terms of different plastic material into something that's completely new to us. We will work with what we have in our hands. A more general question from Chris Counihan, Jefferies. How does BASF evaluate the effectiveness of BASF's huge R&D spending per year? Externally, we can't see any obvious benefits in terms of faster growth and/or higher margins versus closest peers. You presented the figures. Yeah. This is always also obviously a question we are internally discussing up and down. I think we have this target that we have EUR 10 billion sales generated from products not older than five years coming out of the R&D pipeline. I think this is one. Here you might then really discuss is this figure really moving over time. What I foresee now, especially with our new organization, to speed up the operating divisions, the innovation cycles, and loop it together with customers, will help us significantly in generating more organic growth with it. We will be able to start tailor-made projects earlier. We will also be able to stop some of them if we see that they are not valuable for the customers. With this, we will have also a better output here. I think this would be then also the KPI that we will see moving once this new organization is really up and running. Maybe you want to put your add? Yeah. Another point to add to this, I mean, one is the new products we make, the other one is the processes we make. We have actually divided this into two categories because new processes, sustainable ones, are obviously the ones that will drive what we want to do. Of course, we calculate new products with new processes together. When I mentioned the operational excellence should never be discarded, that alone saves around 200,000 tons of CO2, and also that incurs a profitability on both sides. It is, of course, sustainable in account of being, of course, valuable in terms of, yeah, business, but also in terms of sustainability. We have a whole database calculating that as well. The next question is again from Christian Faitz, Jefferies. For innovations in electromobility, you are missing one chemical that contributes significantly to weight reduction in the car body, polycarbonate. Would you ever consider investing into polycarbonates, obviously via an acquisition? I think that comes with the statement I made before, that I'm quite happy with the plastic portfolio we have in our hands. Now a question from Sam Perry, Credit Suisse. How much demand are you seeing from customers for solutions which enable them to reduce their Scope 3 emissions versus two years ago? How much of a pricing and market share growth opportunity does this present? Focus is on Scope 3, whether this is of interest for our customers and how does it compare to two years ago. I think if you're defining us as Scope 3 for our customers, yes, there's lots of discussions ongoing. I think what customers are, they have all their, depending on the industries, a little bit faster defined their climate targets. They have also very significant targets to reduce their CO2 footprint for their consumers. We are part of the game, obviously. What we do, we have created the transparency because we really can talk about the CO2 footprint of each of our products. We have now a carbon footprint for each of our 45,000 products that we are selling. This is really helping with the discussion with the customers. We can clearly say, "You have the product with a certain footprint, depends on the others." You can also ask us for reducing the footprint by using bio-based materials, for instance, or by inventing a new technology. For us also this discussion is quite useful because we can then make it very transparent. This comes obviously also most of the time with a little bit higher cost. We can discuss, is this worthwhile in reducing Scope 3 from a customer perspective when we change something in our system. We are able to change now and tweak here and there and offer already very good solutions. It's really accepted. It was completely different maybe five years ago when there was no kind of feedback coming when we are starting something. Now it's really the whole industry, regardless where they are experts in, is changing here. We have another retail investor question. This is a bit, a personal question. Which sustainable innovation are you working on that is most impressive for you? We talked a little bit about that, where you said the little tweaks are sometimes also what is really important and great. I think Matthias mentioned the very bold technology moves we are doing. This is impressive because it takes some courage to do this. It's with high investment, it's obviously also with high risk. We need endurance, we need time. Something like a methane pyrolysis is not developed within two or three years. It takes time. When you look at the possibility of the 45,000 products we are selling, to offer really customer solutions by having kind of smaller, sustainable, benefits being created faster and to add this up, I think, to this kind of huge portfolio and this is maybe something which is even more impressive, that we are able in the chemical industry to support our customers here. Since there are, I think, no more immediate questions at this time, I think it has been a long year also for analysts and investors. We are happy you joined us, but we have come to the end of our R&D webcast. We hope you found it informative and interesting to learn about specific examples. Please do not hesitate to contact a member of the IR team if you have any further questions on the topics presented today or any other topics where you might want to learn more. Thank you very much for joining us today, and we wish you all the best for the holiday season already today. Thank you.