Solvay announced today its plans to reach carbon neutrality before 2050. This represents the next stage in the company’s ongoing sustainability journey and builds on the 2030 targets set out in its sustainability roadmap, Solvay One Planet, launched in January 2020. As part of its roadmap, Solvay is upgrading its greenhouse gas emissions reduction target to -30% by 2030 (from -26% initially).

 

Meeting carbon neutrality in the future requires Solvay’s investment in innovation today. Solvay will focus its efforts on maximizing electrification and clean energy, such as solar power and sustainable biomass use across its plants, as well as facilitating process innovations. Furthermore, the infrastructural, regulatory and macroeconomic levers enabled by public policies will be a critical component in Solvay's investment decisions in order to achieve these ambitions. Partnerships with authorities and other stakeholders will be key drivers towards an affordable and competitive transition to cleaner energy across Solvay's entire value chain.

 

Solvay’s roadmap includes a three phase approach spanning three decades, with the primary focus on switching energy sources to cut emissions and improve the Group's carbon footprint across all its businesses and operational activities. 

 

“Since the launch of Solvay One Planet, we have delivered against the Paris Agreement and today’s carbon neutrality announcement is yet another milestone in our journey, including our decision to phase out coal in the second soda ash plant in just two years. Our new carbon neutrality roadmap, backed by meaningful investments, will prove yet again that targeted action on climate is good for the planet and good for business — and we will continually report progress against these targets. At the same time, we are preparing our scope 3 commitments with the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi). We believe that sustainability is profitability, and we will continue to develop our innovation pipeline to deliver the sustainable solutions our customers need for tomorrow's future technologies in areas such as electrification, lightweighting and green hydrogen.” comments Ilham Kadri, Solvay CEO.

 

Solvay plans to invest up to €1 billion to reach carbon neutrality by 2040 for all its businesses other than soda ash. Additional investments of approximately €1 billion have been identified for soda ash to pave its path towards full carbon neutrality for the Group before 2050. These investments will be partially supported by non-recourse financing, enabling Solvay to also continue to invest in its growth initiatives. Further studies on technology innovation will determine the future investment needs beyond 2040. The company has also raised its internal carbon price from €50 to €100 per metric ton of CO2, ensuring that future investments are oriented towards zero-emission projects. Solvay fully expects the investments will be value accretive, generating returns well in excess of the Group's cost of capital, and are estimated to represent around 10% on average of annual capex spend.