Solvay is rolling out a new initiative to track the company’s carbon travel footprint, raise funds to support Group sustainability projects and build awareness around responsible and sustainable travel. The initiative aims to highlight every employee’s individual carbon footprint.

Since 2019, Solvay has reduced its overall carbon usage linked to air and rail travel by nearly 70%, due in large part to the COVID-19 pandemic, but also to the implementation of Solvay’s New Way of Working, where digital tools have made virtual visits easily accessible to all. The Group is now focused on sustaining these new behaviors and minimizing the company’s travel carbon footprint by scheduling fewer in-person meetings, reducing the number of international flights, suppressing one-day air trips and recommending switching from business to economy class or from air to rail when those alternatives exist. These measures are emphasized as a way to raise awareness about everyone's individual carbon footprint.

Tracking Solvay’s travel footprint will ultimately finance a fund to be used for sponsoring sustainability projects with a carbon-offset focus wherever feasible. Global business units will contribute a monetary amount based on the entity’s travel footprint calculated at €100 per ton of CO2. That amount will be charged to each entity and transferred to the Group Travel Carbon Contribution Fund.