3.2. Materiality analysis
Solvay bases its priorities for sustainability on a materiality analysis. This approach identifies critical economic, environmental and social aspects with potential to significantly impact Solvay’s performance and/or substantially influence stakeholders’ decisions. The analysis is performed and updated each year according to the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) approach.
5
Priority aspects
8
Highly material aspects
12
Moderate materiality aspects
Materiality analysis
Category |
Moderate materiality |
High materiality |
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Business model and innovation |
Environment, social impacts on assets and operations |
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Environment |
Biodiversity impacts |
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Human capital |
Compensation and benefits |
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Social capital |
Data security and customer privacy |
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Leadership and governance |
Systemic risk management |
Process accident and safety |
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Materiality analysis process
Solvay’s Sustainable Development function coordinates the analysis with an internal network of Solvay Way champions in the business units and functions. Experts in each Corporate Function have reviewed the analysis of each aspect, and particular attention has been paid to consistency with the Group’s risk analysis.
Materiality analysis process
2017 updates
In 2017, “Diversity and Inclusion” was moved from Moderate Materiality to High Materiality based upon greater evidence of interest from multiple stakeholder groups, and upon the results of GBU materiality analysis.
As in previous years, the vocabulary used for material aspects has been kept consistent with the SASB Materiality Map™, except in cases where the Group’s Executive Committee has made a decision to do otherwise during the validation step in order to broaden the scope of some material aspects. This is the case for the following high materiality aspects:
- “Societal actions” includes “Community relations” from the 2017 SASB Materiality Map™;
- “Employee engagement and well-being” includes “Labor relations” and “Fair labor practices” from the SASB Materiality Map™ , and employee well-being;
- “Sustainable business solutions” includes “Lifecycle impacts of products and services” from the 2017 SASB Materiality Map™;
- “Management of the legal, ethics and regulatory framework” includes “Business Ethics ”, “Competitive behavior”, and “Human Rights” from the 2017 SASB Materiality Map™.
The main change in vocabulary compared to last year is that “Process accident and safety” now combines the aspects formerly labeled “Process safety, emergency preparedness and response” and “Environmental accidents and remediation”.
Correspondence between the materiality analysis and the risk analysis of the group
As described in the corresponding section of this report, the risk analysis of the group is a specific process and is used as input for the materiality analysis.
Two of the main risks, “Security” and “Cyber risks”, are linked to moderate materiality aspects (Systemic risk management, Data security) because their impact on daily operations is limited. The other risks are linked to highly material aspects.