Interview: Solvay Is Building a New Mode of Sustainable Chemistry



Jacques Kheliff, Solvay Sustainable Development General Manager (Left)

Michael Zhu, Solvay Greater China General Manager (Middle)

Michel Washer, Solvay Sustainable Development Deputy General Manager (Right)



Sustainable development is a driving force of Solvay group’s strategy, a part of its vision and integrated into its processes. It is a way of practicing its professions, of looking ahead, and of guiding its investments to ensure that the company responds with solutions to global challenges. Sustainable development is also a lever for growth: a portion of its business is already oriented towards markets driven by the demands and opportunities associated with these developments.

In 2013, Solvay launched Solvay Way for further stepping towards achieving its vision.

China Chemical Reporter (CCR) spoke to Jacques Kheliff, Solvay Sustainable Development General Manager, Michel Washer, Solvay Sustainable Development Deputy General Manager, and Michael Zhu, Solvay Greater China General Manager in Shanghai on July 1, to gain a better understanding of the benefits of Solvay Way and Sustainable Development.



CCR: Could you please describe what the Solvay Way is and what role does Sustainable Development play in Solvay’s growth strategy?

Jacques and Michel: Solvay Way defines Solvay’s commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), implemented through a reference framework of best practices. It expresses its desire to operate responsibly across the world, and to accelerate the Group’s progress towards sustainable chemistry. Solvay Way is an ambitious and pragmatic approach, backed by concrete commitments and continuous improvement. It seeks to build a wide-based culture of responsibility, with every employee at every site adopting the associated practices and behaviors.

Solvay desires to become a global leader in sustainable chemistry. Be it by making our roads safe with low energy lighting, keeping our clothes clean, our houses warm whilst reducing energy consumption, our water pure or by reaching for the skies, Solvay’s chemistry contributes to quality of life and provides solutions that enable us to do more with less. The Group’s long-term ambition translates its vision of acting as a responsible company that contributes to the quality of life through a more innovative and sustainable chemistry.

This approach integrates the social, societal, environmental and economic aspects in the company management and strategy with the objective of creating value. It takes into account the changing expectations of society to develop technologies, processes, products, applications and services in line with the objectives of sustainable development.

To ensure rapid progress along the Solvay Way, the Group has integrated the goals of a more sustainable development into all its managerial processes. In this way it can be sure that every player is vigilant in meeting their commitments at every stage of the business cycle and in all stakeholder relationships - Ethics (the Solvay Code of Conduct), Human Resources, Purchasing, Innovation and Production.

CCR: Could you please describe the initiatives that Solvay China has launched and the positive impact on target stakeholders?

Michael: Thru Solvay Way deployment, Solvay China, at all sites, continuously improves its practices, processes in all areas of social and environmental responsibility: increasing the proportion of our revenues that meet the challenges of sustainable development facing by customers, reducing environmental footprint, further improving safety and developing the competencies of our employees.  

Employee:

Solvay China is committed to its employees in terms of ensuring employees’ health and safety, respecting employees’ fundamental human rights and guaranteeing their social rights, promoting quality social dialogue, developing employability and motivating employees:

* Solvay signed global agreement on Social and Environmental Responsibility with IndustriALL Global Union, which covers Solvay ’s 30 000 employees, including 3 000 employees in China.

* Provide training to above 90% of employee on sustainability principle and Solvay’s ambition on CSR and approach of Solvay Way.

* To develop employability of employees, we reinforced training framework and contents, which involve both career development and professional skill. At the last count in 2013, training hour of employee in Solvay China over reached 50.8 hour/person, among which 72% from internal training, remaining 28% from external training.

* To ensure a quality social dialogue, we set up Labor Unions and Employee Representative Council in each site, who will be consulted by the entity's management formally and sufficiently in advance on major policy directions, especially in the areas of HSE and working conditions.

* We established employee suggestions procedure and social barometer to promote employee expression and continuous improvement projects, including the subject of CSR.

* We identified the potential hazards and perform risk assessment, and ensure medical supervision of employees, and providing information on health risks equally to contractors working in our sites. In our pursuit of zero working accidents, our occupational accident frequency rate is among the lowest in the industry.

Planet:

With Solvay Way deployment, we are prompting best practices on environmental management to reduce the industrial footprint. We committed to preserve natural resources by improving energy efficiency, optimizing raw materials consumption and reducing waste and water consumption.

We are deploying a new internal HSE management system (SCMS) equivalent to OHSAS 18001, Voluntary Protection Programs, ISO 14001, US Responsible Care Management System.

Our “Solwatt” program is fully integrated on the whole energy value chain and fits the policy of energy optimization adopted by Solvay Group. The primary objective of the program is to contribute to reach reduction by at 10% of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions for each tons produced (compared to the levels of year before). Solwatt program expanded to Solvay China since 2012. To date, 3 out of 11 sites have adopted Solwatt program, with annual primary energy savings of 291 trillion joules and CO2 reduction of 30 000 tons of per year.

Customer:

Solvay integrates CSR commitments into customer relationship and innovation, developing collaborative approach with customer to address key societal and environmental challenges. With closely monitoring the mega trends, we indentify customer needs on sustainability development, and translate them into Innovative solutions. All innovation activities in China and worldwide are assessed by both Sustainable Portfolio Management (SPM) methodology and Sustainable Index (SI) tool.

For example, our ActalysTM - Optalys TM, dedicated to emission control system of gasoline vehicles, which are present in more than one third of auto catalytic converters in China. This range reduces usage of precious metals whilst simultaneously improving performance and durability.

Our innovation on green solvent Rhodiasolv? IRIS is supporting agriculture to meet their challenge on increasing agricultural output, protecting health and the natural environment, preserving water resources.

Develop and steer relationships with local stakeholders to ensure the integration of entities within their territories. Proactively contribute to local development and control industrial risks related to entities’ presence in their community.

CCR: Could you please describe in how Solvay operates towards a model of sustainable chemistry?

Jacques and Michel: Solvay, as a key player of chemical industry, respects people and their environment. We offer employees a safe and secure working environment that encourages their professional development. We maintain a regular dialogue with our employees in an atmosphere of trust. This exchange is particularly important as they are the key players in our responsible performance. We aim to make our environmental footprint as neutral as possible for the planet. Priority is given to using renewable and recycled materials, with a constantly reducing consumption of energy, water and resources. We increasingly develop and supply products that meet the sustainable development challenges our customers face today and tomorrow.

The Group started pretty early (2007), both in Rhodia legacy and Solvay Legacy, to have a systematic process in place to improve each commitment towards key stakeholders. It can therefore harvest its efforts and benefit of a real rooted culture of sustainability.

With integration of the advances and best practices of 2 legacy companies, we builds out “Solvay Way”, the new sustainable development policy of the group. It is an integral part of a dynamic of continuous progress, based on a reference framework of 48 practices, structured on a four-point scale,  that are part of 23 commitments which enable all Group entities to apply common approaches to assess their sustainable development progress on an annual basis. This framework is structured by 6 stakeholders (Customer, Employee, Shareholder, Planet, Supplier and Community) and is in line with the ISO 26000* standard.

Each year the Solvay’s industrial and administrative sites (including all sites in China), business units and research centers, purchasing, finance, legal, public affairs, strategy and human resources departments all assessed their practices in terms of corporate social responsibility. The objective – for each part of the Group is to identify its progress toward stakeholders regarding Solvay Way commitments, then entities can define action plan to improve their processes and practices.

CCR: What are Solvay’s ambitions or objectives in sustainable developmental and social responsibility?

Jacques: Solvay has set its ambitious targets for 2020, in all areas of social and environmental responsibility:

* To realize an increasing share of our sales in markets or with a portfolio of activities meeting the requirements of sustainable development- 20% of our turnover in the “Star” category according to the SPM assessment, 100% of our R&I projects in the “Star” or “Aligned” category according to the SPM assessment;

* To achieve excellence in safety, health and occupational hygiene for all people on our sites- less than one occupational accident with medical treatment - per million working hours;

* To continuously improve the understanding and performance of our technologies, processes and products so as to reduce their environmental impact and prevent injury to people throughout the life cycles of our products - 100% of our sites with a risk analysis updated in the last 5 years;

* To reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, energy and water consumption, and negative impacts on soil, water and air quality, as well as the use of resources, especially non-renewable ones - 10% of energy consumption, - 10% of greenhouse gas emissions, -10% of groundwater and drinking water consumption, 100% of our sites under water stress with a sustainable water management, -25% of air emissions of substances with an acidification potential, -10% of air emissions of substances with a photochemical ozone creation potential, -20% of water emissions of substances with an eutrophication potential.

* To develop rich and balanced social dialogue with employee representatives at national and international- 100% of our employees trained to Solvay Way, new global agreement on responsibility, training of at least 1 week per year and for all our employees.

Aligned with above objectives, each and every Global Business Units (GBU) and site also set their sustainability objectives to achieve by 2020. To achieve that, the Solvay Way reference framework gives managers of the various Solvay sites, GBUs and functions a grid with which to self-assess their progress at four levels: launch, deployment, maturity and performance. Simply put, the aim is to induce a continuous improvement dynamic, with commitments periodically reviewed and made more ambitious.