Our founder, Ernest Solvay was one of the first corporate leaders to implement what we today call Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Since then, we have pioneered social welfare and caring for our people. We want to create a Better Life for all - to enhance the lives and wellbeing of Solvay employees and the communities we serve.
Our Better Life commitments
As a responsible employer, we’re committed to improving the quality of life for our teams and communities through various initiatives. We focus on health and safety, diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI), and well-being at work. Our Better Life goals include:
Zero accidents
Gender parity in mid and senior management by 2035
A living wage for all employees worldwide by 2026 (as defined by the UN Global Compact Initiative)
We are dedicated to making ongoing progress in these areas.
Safety at the workplace
We’re committed to keeping our employees safe and creating an accident-free workplace. We aim to achieve zero accidents and zero reportable injury & illness rate (RIR) per 200,000 work hours by 2030. To reach this goal, we’re constantly improving workplace safety and reinforcing our safety culture.
Ensuring a fair living wage for all employees
Everyone deserves a fair wage. Our Better Life roadmap commits to ensuring 100% of our workforce is paid a living wage (as defined by the Global Living Wage Coalition) by 2026. We are assessing living wage equity and plan to close any gaps by 2030.
Embedding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in day-to-day business and operations
Currently, 24% of our workforce and 26% of our leadership positions are held by women. We aim to achieve gender parity in mid and senior management within the next 10 years as one of our DEI commitments. We are also focusing on equitable pay, fair hiring practices, and equal career development to foster gender equality.
Our code of business integrity
We have a global code of business integrity that applies to everyone at Solvay and that we all have to sign. By implementing this code, which includes annual training for every employee, we make sure that we can all observe the same ethical way of working, holding ourselves to the highest standards.
Our Initiatives
Our Better Life commitments are complemented and enhanced by a wide range of initiatives:
Solvay Cares social program
In the 1880s, Solvay pioneered social policies to care for employees' health and protection. Our Solvay Cares social program continues this tradition by guaranteeing key social benefits for all Solvay employees worldwide. These benefits include health insurance, disability and life insurance, and at least 16 weeks of parental leave for all parents.
Our parental leave policy is inclusive, available to any co-parent regardless of country, employment type, sexual orientation, and also covers adoptive parents.
In 2023, we added a new benefit to support employees with caregiving duties. Employees can take up to five days each year to handle unexpected caregiving needs. Additionally, Solvay is establishing a holiday donation bank with 100 days of leave for employees to use for caregiving purposes.
Employees and human rights
In 2005, Solvay became the first chemical company to establish a partnership with the IndustriALL union, which represents over 50 million workers in the mining, energy, and manufacturing sectors around the world.
We recently renewed and strengthened our Solvay Global Forum Agreement and Global Framework Agreement with them. Focusing on mental and physical health, safety at work, fighting discrimination, promoting inclusion and diversity, remote work rights, and environmental respect.
The Solvay Global Forum represents our 9,000 colleagues worldwide, ensuring their voices are heard by leadership and their rights are protected. It aims to create a two-way social dialogue and exchange of views between senior leadership and employee representatives on a global level.
We will also continue to uphold the Ten Principles of the United Nations Global Compact initiative regarding human rights, employee rights, the environment, and anti-corruption, reporting our progress annually.
Sharing our sustainable success with our team and communities
We’re dedicated to making sure sustainability remains a significant part of our long-term Solvay share incentive for senior management, short-term cash incentive for all managers, and global performance sharing program for all other employees.
In addition, Solvay shares its successes with its communities through societal and philanthropic actions. For example, to inspire future minds in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), we launched the Solvay-CERN education camp in partnership with CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics.
