Head of Government & Public Affairs, Asia Pacific
Topic: Solvay Asking More from Chemistry
Thursday, October 25, 2018
09:30 – 11:30 Hours
Venue: Salle D’ Expo
Solvay is an advanced materials and specialty chemicals company, committed to developing chemistry addressing key societal challenges. It was created in Belgium in 1863. The company innovates and partners with customer worldwide in many diverse end markets, ranked among the world’s top 3 leaders in 90% of activities.
The products are used in planes, cars, batteries, smart and medical devices, and mineral and oil & gas extraction; enhancing efficiency, light weighting materials to promote cleaner mobility, advanced formulations optimizing the use of resources, and improved air by performance chemical and water quality.
Sample products are the plastic bottle for mineral water invented in 1960, precipitated silica for green tire invented in 1990, and more.
The commitment to development is one of the growth drivers with set objectives to assess in 5 progressive areas: 1.) Greenhouse gas intensity, 2.) Solutions, 3.) Safety, 4.) People engagement, and 5.) Societal actions.
Three structured megatrend activities are evolving demography and consumer behavior, innovation acceleration, and resources constraints and demand.
Solvay was in particular rewarded for the methodology which measures the impact of the group’s business decisions. The main strengths are material analysis, impact measurement and valuation through portfolio management, human rights due diligence, and innovation management. The remaining weaknesses are operational eco – efficiency, water related risks, product stewardship, human capital development, and occupational health and safety.
The open global innovation systems to access external knowledge are to collaborate with academia worldwide, invest in venturing funds and start – ups, partner with the industry including customer/research consortia, and fund life supporting program/project.
Example of innovations are Solvay Dental 360TM to innovate material replacing metal in removable partial denture frames and enable to accelerate the work of dental laboratories and dentists, SolvayLiteTM thermoset composites enabling lighter vehicles while offering design freedom/exceptional properties and the use of automated processes, and N ProtectTM set of eco – friendly formulations used as stabilizer for urea fertilizer allowing higher crop yields with less fertilizer.
The company also arranges many good social responsibility activities and collaborates with other charitable organizations to entertain and educate the next generations about their quality of life and safety.