On the morning of December 19, the Solvay Italy’s “end of year meeting” took place in the auditorium of the Solvay Headquarters & Research Centre in Bollate (Milan, Italy). During the event, the country manager Marco Colatarci presented an overview of the activities that took place in 2016.

“2016 was a very good year for the Group in Italy”, Colatarci said. “All the scheduled business goals were reached, with excellent results and a consolidation of all activities. This confirms the excellent health status both of the group at global level and of the operations in Italy, where Solvay is active with 9 sites, 2,000 people and almost all the business lines that the group deploys in the international markets.

This has been a year of key changes: the group, at global level, is evolving towards specialty technology markets; in Italy, a new perspective for development was provided for the Bussi site (Abruzzo), which was taken over by the Todisco Group. Overall, 2016 has been a milestone also for the objectives attained concerning safety, confirming that we are on the right path, even if we aim at a constant continuous improvement.

As far as the future is concerned, significant projects and investments are planned for the next two years, confirming the key role of the business in Italy and the focus of the group on our country”.

Amongst the major projects of 2016, the spotlight was on Solar Impulse, which flew around the world exclusively on solar energy. The Solvay Group is technical main sponsor of this enterprise, in line with its sustainable development objectives. Italy, with the Bollate headquarters and the Porto Marghera and Spinetta plants, contributed delivering innovative products that allowed the success of the enterprise, to the great satisfaction of Solvay Italy.

Also, there has been an increase in the societal actions strategy: several projects for the community were carried out in the Bollate territory and in the neighborhoods of other Solvay sites. To this end, in the course of the morning, two key actions were presented - a food collection for non-profit charity organization Banco Alimentare and support to non-profit organization ASVI, a solidarity volunteering association assisting children in underprivileged areas.

The day was concluded by the intervention of journalist Gabriella Greison, who presented her recent book “The incredible dinner of the quantum physicists” and performed an extract of the “Quantum monologue”, a theatrical piece based on the book, inspired by the first worldwide scientific conventions promoted by Ernest Solvay in the early Twentieth Century.