Solvay releases Integrated Report and Annual Report

In 2020, Solvay overcame headwinds to deliver strong financial performance, as well as significant progress on sustainability goals.

Brussels, April 2, 2021, 8:30 CEST - Solvay today released its Integrated Report and Annual Report.

The fully digital Integrated Report provides a comprehensive and integrated view of Solvay’s economic, environmental, and social performance for 2020. The Annual Report offers a detailed view of Solvay’s governance practices, risk management, business review, economic, environmental, social and financial performance for 2020.

Although the year 2020 came with substantial challenges, each of them showcased the breadth and depth of Solvay’s strengths. As a leader in providing solutions to some of the world’s most pressing needs, in 2020 we were able to supply numerous products to help manage the pandemic. We were also able to continue to address increasing needs to:

• Conserve scarce resources;
• Ramp up hyper-connectivity;
• Support mobility;
• Prioritize clean sources of energy;
• Make healthcare and sanitization solutions more accessible;
• Enable more efficient, cleaner product manufacturing; and
• Increase agricultural yields.

Solvay accomplished all this while moving toward a low-carbon and more inclusive global economy.

Sustainability is integrated in all our key strategic decisions, including research and innovation, capital expenditure, M&A activities and investment decisions. The 2020 Annual Report documents this convergence, and should be read in complement of the 2020 Integrated Report.

Here are just a few highlights from these:

Financial sustainability

Knowing that financial sustainability is the foundation for all other types of sustainability, we took numerous steps to enhance our financial foundation and performance, including by:

• Delivering seven straight quarters of strong free cash flow;
• Achieving cost savings of €332 million; and
• Reducing net debt by €1.2 billion.
• Making exceptional contributions to our pension plan to put us on track to reduce pension cash costs by €100 million per year;
• Structurally improve working capital, including reducing receivable overdue levels to a low single-digit record amount.

Leaders in areas of rapidly growing demand

In 2020, we took numerous significant steps to align our core products, services, and competencies with the most rapidly growing markets, regulatory, policy, and scientific demands, including: