
SOLVAY 2021 ANNUAL INTEGRATED REPORT
STRATEGY
38
Fostering better life at work
Employee well-being is key to our success. During the pandemic,
we put in place dedicated tools to protect the health of employees
and their families. They help the Group, and managers worldwide,
to quickly adapt and put in place appropriate action plans. They
include:
f Global monthly monitoring of all employees who have tested
positive for Covid-19 or are in quarantine, which is used by site
managers to adapt safety measures locally.
f A Pulse survey, carried out worldwide every quarter, which
measures employee motivation and mindset and helps identify
areas for improvement. In September 2021, specific questions
were included to measure employee engagement and enable
us to monitor this key indicator over time.
f The Solvay Solidarity Fund continues to support employees
significantly impacted by the pandemic and natural disasters.
Over 850individual applications for support have been
processed since April 2020 and we have supported local
communities through 30distinct projects, including initiatives
relating to urgent healthcare needs, mental health support for
caregivers and assistance for schools affected by flooding. In
early 2022, we donated €1million to relief efforts in Ukraine and
promised to double future employee donations.
f Our Employee Assistance Program, launched globally in
November 2021, which offers confidential psychological
support and other assistance, such as life coaching and legal
and financial orientation, to all employees and members of their
households. In collaboration with Jaume I University of Valencia,
in Spain, we also launched a pilot initiative to create an employee
well-being observatory. Through a holistic well-being diagnosis
led in three Solvay sites, we will measure the effectiveness of our
efforts and design the course of action needed.
The following initiatives are also part of our well-being at work
policy:
f Starting on January 1, 2021, we increased our global maternity
leave policy to 16weeks and extended it to all co-parents
employed by the company. This is part of our Solvay Cares
benefit program, which provides a minimum level of company
social benefits to all employees worldwide.
f In 2021, more than 7,500of our people moved into a hybrid
mode of working across Solvay’s 35 administrative sites globally.
This is part of our mobile working framework, launched in 2020.
Driving change through the Sustainable
Guar Initiative
Solvay is a world leader in guar-based business and has been
acting as a change agent in this field through the Sustainable Guar
Initiative (SGI). The initiative was launched in 2015, in collaboration
with the NGO Technoserve and our customer L’Oreal, with another
customer, Henkel, joining shortly after. It aims to help make guar
cultivation more sustainable in Rajasthan, India, while empowering
women farmers through training in hygiene, health, and nutrition.
In 2021, we took the initiative a step further, partnering with
Technoserve and BanQu to further enhance our social impact.
Using blockchain, we have built a digital platform that allows
farmers to trace their guar from farm to shampoo, ensuring full
transparency on prices and volumes sold and enabling them to
benefit from direct payment. So far, 2,000farmers have started
using the platform, which also provides training on sustainable
farming practices and school attendance for children, and
includes programs dedicated to the empowerment of women
farmers. Perhaps most importantly, it enables women to access a
financial identity, giving them the opportunity to open their own
bank accounts and offering them opportunities to continue to do
business during pandemic restrictions.
Innovating to raise the bar with
new non-uorosurfactant technologies
Solvay’s goal, wherever possible, is to use non-fluorosurfactant
technologies in our operations. It is an ongoing journey, which has
enabled us to explore new technological innovations that advance
our sustainability ambitions.
The launch of our new non-fluorosurfactant technologies,
Hylar®5000S and Tecnoflon® LX, in May 2021 is a great example
of how Solvay is leveraging our innovation engine to drive new
sustainable solutions for customers. These technologies use
a new polymerization process that does not require the use of
fluorosurfactant process aids from the polyfluoroalkyl substances
(PFAS) family of compounds, while keeping important properties
required by customers and applications.
At our West Deptford facility, in New Jersey, our new non-
fluorosurfactant technologies have been in full production since
July 2021. As a result, Solvay has been able to completely eliminate
the use of PFAS-based process aids in the US.
The phasing out of PFAS-based process aids is not yet feasible in
all applications. Research is ongoing to transform our products
and provide more specialized products that our customers can
qualify for use in a variety of applications that support a more
sustainable society and green mobility. This includes solutions
used in renewable energy installations, lithium-ion batteries and
components for compact engines in hybrid vehicles.
Today, we use a very limited number of fluorosurfactant process
aids at our Spinetta plant, in Italy, where we apply state-of-the-
art techniques that eliminate nearly 100% of fluorosurfactant
emissions from our manufacturing. This is a concrete example of
how we are using science to focus on a more sustainable future.
» https://www.solvay.com/en/innovation/science-solutions/pfasRead more: