2022 Sasol Sustainability Report - Book - Page 8
INTRODUCTION
SUSTAINABILITY PERFORMANCE AGAINST OUR FOCUS AREAS
DATA AND ASSURANCE
PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER’S STATEMENT
I am delighted to be a founding member of the
UN Global Compact African Business Leaders
Coalition which serves to amplify Africa’s business
voice on the continent’s most pressing issues.
Fleetwood Grobler
President and Chief Executive Officer
Dear stakeholders
The past year was characterised by
tumultuous geopolitical and macroeconomic
conditions which continuously re-shaped
the global economy, impacting countries
and societies. Although, these conditions
affected our operating context, we remain
resolute in our commitment to our Net Zero
ambitions and to creating sustainable value
for stakeholders in the long term.
Closer to home, I am still deeply saddened by the loss
of five colleagues while on duty and wish to again
convey our condolences to their loved ones. Pursuing
Zero Harm is the top priority for Sasol’s leadership,
and we will continue to create safe operating
environments for all our employees. We continue to
advance our high severity incident programme across
the business through targeted interventions and
leading indicators, and focusing on humanising
safety by showing care for ourselves and others.
The Group SHE Policy has been updated to reflect a
holistic approach to the safety and wellbeing of our
people, as we seek to embed a culture of care and
discipline. The improved policy scope better reflects
our commitment to delivering triple-bottomline
outcomes of People, Planet and Profit. Furthermore,
sustainability is at the centre of our strategy,
with our decarbonisation goals, creation of new
sustainable value business ventures and delivering
a just transition key to Future Sasol’s success
and that of our host countries and communities.
We are facing the twin challenges of securing our
energy needs, while having to transition to a
low-carbon economy.
Sasol’s strategy is underpinned by partnerships,
which is further reflected in the addition of SDG 9
as another of our prioritised SDGs, bringing the
total to five. Our newly established Just Transition
Office will be instrumental in driving the transition
collaboratively. For Sasol, growing shared value is
an imperative to ensure we strengthen the resilience
of our communities through economic participation,
contributing to growth and improving quality of life.
This includes providing access to quality education,
skills development and economic transformation,
particularly small and micro-enterprises around
our fence line communities.
In light of the importance we place on partnerships,
I am delighted to be a founding member of the UN
Global Compact African Business Leaders Coalition
(ABLC). The ABLC serves to unify and amplify Africa’s
business voice on the continent’s most pressing
issues that are not only core to us but also core to
all our stakeholders. As the only resourced-based
founding member, Sasol is well positioned to
contribute to enabling Africa’s just transition in a
manner that considers the welfare of all people on
the continent and unlocks the potential of the green
economy in combating climate change.
We are making tangible progress in delivering on
our ambitions towards Net Zero by pursuing
decarbonisation initiatives as part of our holistic
approach to sustainability. Sasol Chemicals is
progressing our sustainability ambitions by leveraging
our world-class assets and strong customer and
supplier relationships. This approach aims to realise
our decarbonisation goals by reducing our GHG
emissions by 30% by 2030. Three of our sites in
Eurasia achieved ISCC-PLUS certification to use mass
balanced bio-based and recycled feedstocks at our
major facilities which will enhance our low-carbon
product portfolio. In addition, we have products that
enhance the manufacturing efficiency of solar panels
and components to produce lithium-ion batteries for
electric vehicles. The business was recognised by
several key customers for innovative products and
solutions. Further upstream of the business, we have
secured multiple renewable power purchase
agreements at our Eurasian sites.
In Southern Africa, Sasol Energy is well positioned to
lead the energy transition by leveraging our people,
assets and technology. Sasol is concluding pioneering
power purchase agreements with suppliers for
approximately 600MW Renewable Energy (RE) that
will supply our operations by 2025 or earlier.
Transitioning nearly fifty percent of our electricity
needs to renewable sources and the quantum of
the RE programme makes it one of the largest
deployments of solar and wind RE projects in
Southern Africa. RE also provides an ideal platform
for a transition to the green hydrogen economy as
RE can first be used as a utility electricity source and
later to produce green hydrogen. Therefore, we are
excited about the progress we are making with our
catalytic Green Hydrogen project in Sasolburg where
we expect to produce our first volumes of green
hydrogen towards end by 2023 using our repurposed
60MW electrolyser. The project is testament to the
commitment Sasol made to play a leading role in the
creation of a green hydrogen economy in South Africa.
SASOL SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2022
7
Our Purpose ‘to innovate for a better world’ is
coming to life at our Secunda operations where we
are busy implementing a key development to
re-route bio-sludge from our biological water
treatment plants to gasification instead of bio-sludge
incinerators, which can be shut down and realise
immediate air emissions reduction.
Building on 70 years of success using Fischer Tropsch
technology to produce fuel and chemicals from coal
and gas, the recently announced Sasol ecoFT
business are attracting real market interest in its
positioning to use our proven FT technology to
produce power-to-X sustainable aviation fuel and
chemicals. Four feasibility studies with partners are
underway where RE and thus green hydrogen, and
sustainable carbon sources would be the feedstock
to produce sought-after sustainable products in
hard-to-abate sectors – actively innovating for a
sustainable world. CARE-O-SENE, an approximately
€40 million research project, funded by Sasol and the
German Federal Government, was launched in May
2022. This ground-breaking project combines the
expertise of a wide range of partners from Germany
and South Africa, to develop and commercialise the
next generation FT catalysts to achieve industryleading kerosene/SAF yield.
These are significant milestones in realising our goal
to creating sustainable value but much more work
must and will be done. The building blocks for Future
Sasol are falling into place and we acknowledge the
scale of the need to transition and ensure no one is
left behind. It is testament to our people and our
stakeholders to advance our ESG agenda in pursuing
our goals.
Fleetwood Grobler
President and CEO
26 August 2022