Living our purpose to earn our childrens’ thumbs up

Check out these beautiful drawings! The UN’s International Day of Women and Girls in Science just reminded us of the need for more inclusive educational and career opportunities for the young generation of girls AND boys to reinvent progress. I’d like to evoke the electrifying conversation I recently had with the Korean children who won a drawing contest organized by our local colleagues, as part of the 2020 Solvay Citizen Day. 

They drew their vision of a sustainable future, which is not only joyfully poetic, but also makes me even prouder to work for a purpose-led company such as Solvay. Allow me to share some of their beautiful energy with you. 

Like many of us at Solvay, our Korean colleagues created an educational video for Citizen Day to promote science, technology, engineering and mathematics among the younger generations. They focused on Solvay’s sustainability solutions; their idea to Go Beyond and gain more traction with the local school children was to award prizes for the best drawings inspired by our video. They got an enthusiastic response, engaging with thousands of people in Korea and receiving 120+ entries for the contest. I was honored to present their prizes to the winners and I found it fascinating to hear how naturally they placed sustainable energy, circularity and mobility at the top of their agenda. 

The 11-year old Rae-Young Kim was apparently inspired by the lemons which I used to make a battery in my own video. She imagined a full-blown Solvay lemon power plant. Rae-Young was “fascinated” by the idea that electricity could also be made from apples or potatoes and that the silica in low-energy tires comes from sand. 

 “When I painted, I thought again about sustainable development, and I see that there are so many ways to save the planet through science,” said this young artist. 

Min-Jae Kim, who is 10, integrated darker aspects, because as he says: “in the future, fine dust will be serious and air pollution will become more severe.” So he dreamt of power generators capable of converting fine particles into energy. Who wouldn’t want to dream that dream with him? Turning effluents into resources, thereby effectively eliminating waste: that’s the Holy Grail of the circular economy and we, chemists, can make it come true. 

In his adorable drawing, Hyung-Jin Seo (8 years old), imagined trees planted on electric vehicles. He explains: “Where the car goes, the air becomes clean because of the trees. So the flowers and animals smile brightly and people also laugh.” I certainly did!  

The first prize went to So-Jung Han, who is 9 years old and confessed she was unaware of the word ‘sustainability’ before watching Solvay’s Citizen Day videos in our Future Innovator’s Library . So it’s only natural that she should flatteringly depict our company as a gentle giant hugging the Earth (where lemon trees make electricity, of course), with children cheering him on.  

“I expressed a ‘thumbs up’ to Solvay for protecting our planet”, she said.

Looking at her drawing (used as top picture of this blog), I thought to myself: we must live up to So-Jung’s dream. It is precisely for her and her friends that we bond people, ideas and elements; it is for them that we want to reinvent progress, live our Purpose in full and turn our Solvay One Planet goals into reality.

And there is no room in their world for companies that are not serious about sustainability. Let’s get to work to earn our children's thumbs up!

Be safe.

P.S. To my Korean colleagues and friends, enjoy Seollal, #lunarnewyear! I wish you a 2021 full of health, solidarity and happiness.

#WomenInStem