Supporting sustainable innovation and growth
Sustainability is integrated into how we develop, evaluate, and manage our products and solutions. Explore how Sustainable Portfolio Management (SPM) helps guide business decisions, how Product Safety supports responsible product stewardship, and how our solutions help customers address environmental and societal challenges.
Learn more:
Solvay SPM Guide
At Solvay we believe that operating as a responsible company means providing true sustainable business solutions to our customers. This involves being able to back up our sustainability claims with evidence that our customers can rely on. To do this, we developed a SPM tool.
Launched in 2012, this fact-based, future-oriented and customer-centric tool helps us to embed sustainability in our key business decisions. It is recognized as consistent with the Product Sustainability Assessment (PSA) guidance of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and is considered by many authoritative bodies as a key strategic tool for decision-makers. SPM is also consistent with the ambition of the European Safe and Sustainable by Design initiative.
Our SPM guide explains how the SPM tool works and its scope, while also providing case studies of how it is used in practice. The guide is available in PDF that can be easily read on mobile devices. It is quite unique for a company to make such a detailed guide accessible in full transparency to our customers, suppliers, NGOs, investors, authorities and academics and to explain how we have implemented it and how we translate the outcomes into actions.
How does SPM work?
The SPM global and systematic assessment helps alert the business to sustainability market signals, even weak ones. This allows us to anticipate their impact and develop the right answers in a timely way. It enables value to be captured in emerging ecosystems and helps businesses to grow their portfolios by leveraging opportunities and turning challenges into solutions.
SPM is designed to boost Solvay’s business performance and deliver higher growth. With SPM, decision makers are informed about the contribution of Solvay’s products to sustainability, considering both:
- Their environmental manufacturing footprints and correlated risks and opportunities – vertical axis – quantitative assessment by 21 impact indicators.
- How in their applications they bring benefits or face challenges in a holistic market perspective – horizontal axis – qualitative assessment on social and environmental topics covering four main themes: Health and Safety, Climate Change, Resources and Opinion Leaders.
The goal is to position the business portfolio in four resulting categories: Challenges, Transitions, Potentials and Solutions. Each category will require a true call for action by all decision makers, helping Solvay’s Global Business Units to deliver on their business ambitions.
Breakdown of Solvay underlying net sales
| SPM assessment (as % of underlying net sales) | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Solutions | 41% | 43% |
| Potentials | 21% | 21% |
| Transitions | 24% | 23% |
| Challenges | 11% | 11% |
| Not evaluated | 3% | 2% |
| Total | 100% | 100% |
What is a Sustainable Solution?
A sustainable solution, as defined by Solvay SPM, is a product that, in a given application, improves customers' social and environmental performance while also demonstrating a lower environmental impact during production.
Through the SPM methodology, Solvay identifies and develops solutions that help customers address environmental and societal challenges while supporting long-term sustainable growth.
Driving long-term sustainable growth
Solvay delivers essential chemicals that are crucial for daily life. Our products help society move towards a more sustainable future. Below, are some solutions we offer through our advanced technologies:
Amni Soul Eco®
Amni Soul Eco® is the world's first polyamide textile yarn, enabling textiles to accelerate decomposition after disposal.
Alve-One®
Alve-One® is a healthier and safer chemical foaming agent, with a lower carbon footprint, used in footwear and sports equipment like shoes.
Augeo®
Developed from glycerin – a renewable source – our Augeo® line of bio-based solvents offers a more sustainable, high-performing alternative to petrochemical solvents for home and personal care.
Bicar®pharma
Bicar®pharma is optimal for use as an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), an effervescent excipient or to provide electrolytes and stabilize the pH in hemodialysis.
Solvaclean®
Solvaclean® is used as an alternative cleaning option in the semiconductor industry, and is made from environmentally friendly fluorinated gas mixtures.
INTEROX® Pico & PicoPlus
INTEROX® PicoPlus hydrogen peroxide, which is used primarily in the cleaning and etching stages of semiconductor chip production, is the market reference in this area.
Solvay, your unique and reliable HPPO partner
Hydrogen Peroxide to Propylene Oxide technology (HPPO) mega plants offer high productivity rates and competitiveness, with a best-in-class approach to sustainability, safety and reliability.
Rare Earth and Metal oxides
Rare earth magnets enable the conversion of electrical energy into mechanical energy and vice versa. They are key components enabling the EV revolution with powerful and highly efficient e-drive traction motors.
Soda Solvay®
Soda Solvay® is used in eco-efficient double - or triple-glazed windows. Almost half the energy we consume is used in buildings, with windows accounting for 15-25% of a building’s heat loss.
Optalys®
Optalys® is a high stability inorganic oxygen-buffer material that enhances the catalytic activity and the durability of the advanced gasoline catalytic converters.
Solvair®
SOLVAir® sodium-based solutions is a dry sorbent injection process for air emission control. When in contact with flue gases, it effectively neutralizes the acids to mitigate pollutants.
Zeosil®
This highly dispersible silica is a technology for tire treads that reduces rolling resistance by 25%, increasing the longevity of tires and lowering fuel consumption by ~7%.
