Solvay releases Integrated Report and Annual Report - Seite 2

• Launching two virus fighting innovations, which helped prevent the spread of COVID-19;
• Adding a Key Accounts Program that is generating new business from our largest clients, while renewing long-term aerospace contracts;
• Providing advanced materials to support growing demand for hyper-connectivity;
• Supporting the semiconductor sector with key chemicals and materials;
• Supplying polymers for new generation OLED and flexible displays;
• Launching our Green Hydrogen Platform;
• Supplying key materials to the 3D printing sector and partnering with software companies to provide complete 3D printing solutions;
• Supplying innovative products to meet the world’s new standards for cleanliness.

Positioning Solvay as a sustainable company

We took numerous steps to strengthen our commitments, including:

• Launching Solvay ONE Planet aligned with our G.R.O.W. strategy and Purpose;
• Decreased structural greenhouse gas emissions by 8% since 2018, which is more than twice the annual average required by the Paris Agreement;
• Adding Science-Based Targets;
• Coal phase-out and deployment of an energy transition programme;
• Creating innovative products that support human health including two key antiviral products and a large number of personal protection equipment items;
• Supplying bio-based ingredients to the organic and natural consumables markets;
• Partnering with Mitsubishi to recycle more advanced materials;
• Initiating a battery recycling partnership with Veolia and ramping up our programs that extract and purify key battery Elements.

Putting our people first

We took numerous steps to recruit, retain, protect, listen to, value, and support our employees. In 2020, we:

• Created the Solvay Solidarity Fund to help employees adversely affected by the pandemic;
• Enabled remote working as the Group’s global standard;
• Added pulse surveys that occur every six weeks to our many employee communications programs;
• Strengthened talent pipeline with programs encouraging STEM-related careers and educational sessions; and
• Set a goal of achieving gender parity amongst our mid- and senior level managers by 2035.

“I’m so proud of what our team was able to accomplish in 2020: we delivered record free cash flow, achieved significant cost savings and made great strides on our Solvay One Planet commitments,” said Solvay CEO Ilham Kadri. “2020 was the year that we brought our Purpose – to bond people, ideas and elements to reinvent progress – to life. We demonstrated that we were essential to the world and we actually capitalized on the crisis, accelerating reforms to unleash our company’s full potential. Today, I can proudly assert that we have emerged stronger.”