Solvay Has Published Its 2013 Sustainable Development Report,Showing a Variety of Measures

Solvay has published its 2013 Sustainable Development Report, showing a variety of concrete measures that the Group has put in place to become a model in sustainable chemistry, supporting its long term growth.

“Sustainable development is a driving force of Solvay’s strategy. It is part of our vision and integrated into the way we conduct our business, ranging from the day-to-day work on the sites to our investment decisions, to ensure that our solutions will answer to global challenges,” said Jacques Khéliff, Group General Manager Sustainable Development. “Sustainable development is also a lever for growth: a portion of our business is already oriented towards markets driven by the demands and opportunities associated with society’s challenges.”

Solvay last year developed five priorities for 2020 to answer to social, societal and environmental challenges:
-To achieve excellence in safety, health and occupational hygiene for everyone on all our sites in 56 countries
-To increase the share of our sales in markets or with activities meeting the requirements of sustainable development
-To relentlessly improve the performance of our technologies, processes and products so as to avoid any harm and to limit their environmental impact throughout the lifecycle of our products
-To lower greenhouse-gas emissions, energy and water consumption, to reduce negative impacts on soil, water, air quality and the use of resources
-To develop rich and balanced social dialogue

As a first important step in its sustainability commitment, Solvay in 2013 signed a global agreement on social and environmental responsibility with the IndustriALL Global Union, which reflects the Group’s aim to develop a rich and balanced dialogue with its employees and their representatives worldwide.

Another milestone was the launch of Solvay Way, the Group’s pragmatic and ambitious sustainable development approach that is backed by a tool that measures progress. Solvay Way seeks to build a wide-based culture of responsibility among all employees.

The Group’s different global business units and all of its sites across 56 countries are to assess their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) performance taking into account the expectations of their customers, employees, investors, suppliers, communities and the planet. The results of the first assessment rounds are included in various parts of the present report.