Gender inequality in companies' board of director analisys - Gueric Mayne+Discussion
Gender inequality in multinational companies has always been an issue, but nevertheless, actions are being taken and nowadays, those same companies tend to reduce this inequality, especially in their board of director.
This analysis therefore aims at providing an approach in how those companies promote gender equality through the examples of Orange, AccorHotels, and L'Oreal Group.
Indeed, those three multinationals have a common vision on gender inequality but still, act in different ways and therefore, have different outcomes.
The question answered was exactly the same for each company: "What percentage of people on the company's board of director are women?".
Hence the metrics provided will generate a comparison in terms of context and achievements.
As far as Orange is concerned, women represent 33% of its executive and management committees which is overall 1/3rd of its board director in 2017. Furthermore, the company was ranked 4th of the CAC40 in France for the percentage of women leaders in 2015.
"https://www.orange.com/en/Infographics/Infographie-l-egalite-professionnelle/Gender-equality-at-Orange"
Orange is a telecommunication chain providing internet services which is, in other words, the technology and science sector. Indeed, this sector being traditionally masculine, stereotypes have been unfortunately developed which reduced the number of women succeeding in that field. Nevertheless, Orange took several initiatives in order to encourage women upon that path and now, 34% of its scientific/technical workforce are female which is also 1/3rd. This means that the metric of 33% which represented the percentage of women in Orange board of director, is almost equivalent to the percentage of women workforce in the company's main sector.
AccorHotels' percentage of women in its board of director is 27% in 2015. Gender diversity and equality is part of the company's Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility Charter. Furthermore, it entered the "HeForShe" solidarity campaign backed by UN Women.
"http://www.accorhotels.group/en/talent/our-philosophy/diversity-and-inclusion"
"The hotel industry, particularly the hotel business industry, is traditionally managed by men, for men" - Empowering Women article. This is why Sebastien Bazin, Chairman and CEO of AccorHotels pushes further for real change. Indeed, AccorHotel is one of the HeForShe project's ten pilot companies and support women to realise their career prospects. Another example of initiative within the company would be "Women At AccorHotel Generation - WAAG" which is an international diversity network that combats sexist stereotypes via internal awareness actions. In other words, AccorHotel has taken strong initiatives to help women realise their career prospects but still have 27% of women in its board of directors, which is mostly due to stereotypes within that sector.
Finally, the metric representing the board of director women's percentage at L'Oreal Group is 48% (7 out of 15) which is almost half of the board in 2015. Moreover, women represent 70% of the company's employees worldwide, again, in 2015.
https://www.diversityreport.loreal.com/en/key-figures-2015/
L'Oreal Group having traditionally been praising women, and having a strong feminine culture, has always have that female inclusion vision that other companies do not have. Indeed, women have always been the essence of the company and therefore, L'Oreal serves as a role model in gender equality management. Indeed, proof is that the company has been awarded the Grand Prize for Gender Diversity in January 2017. The company's initiatives have been successful even though it still can be improved, and women are really involved into the company. Another initiative that was taken was concerning the salary. The difference in salary between men and women has also been reduced and l'Oreal Group is still pushing further.
As far as the conclusion goes, it seems evident that those companies did not have the same environment, resources and action plan to achieve their goal but they still took actions in order to respond to that gender inequality issue. Indeed, the sector and the company's culture influences those actions and this is what those three companies have shown.
Gueric Mayne
Quick Analysis+Discussion
I created this project to analyze activities related to SDG16 undertaken by CAC 40 enterprises. The purpose was to evaluate if promoting peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development as well as providing access to justice for all, and building effective, accountable and inclusive institutions were aspects well handled by powerful companies such as those which are part of the CAC 40.
Thus, I decided to collect data from seven different companies that are part of the CAC 40 such as L'Oréal, Sodexo, Schneider Electric, Veolia, Total S.A, ArcelorMittal and Solvay. In order to have the most recent, relevant and consistent information, all collected data is from the last two years.
Overall, we can see through each company's Corporate Social Responsibility Annual Report and COP that they are all concerned about the United Nation Sustainable Development Goals. However, commitment to the UN Sutainable Development Goal 16 has to be increase. Indeed, most of the seven companies compared are more concerned about SDG 5, SDG 8, SDG 3, SDG 9 and SDG10 which is great, but SDG16 is also an important goal to consider for the world's well being.
First, metrics collected aimed to highlight six main aspects that are the following: finding the number of discrimination incidents, the amount of environmental fines due to environmental violation, the extent to which enterprises are commited to human rights, promote anti-corruption, help community through projects, and take actions towards reaching SDG 16.
Hence, after some research, I found that only TOTAL S.A. and Schneider Electric were providing numbers for incidents of dicrimination. I found numbers for other companies by googling. This means that other companies are not very transparent on this issue as I could not find this information in their GRI index, some of the companies do not even provide a GRI index. TOTAL S.A. discrimination incidents amounted to 127 in 2016 and Schneider Electric discrimination incidents amounted to 80. A lower rate which could be explained by Schneider's R&ED program that raises awareness about discrimination among Schneider's employees.
In terms of environmental violation, TOTAL S.A. is the company that had the highest environmental fines over the last two years, with an environmental fine that amounted to $2,18 million in 2015 and another one in 2016 that amounted to $385,000. It is actually one of the 10 biggest french companies that pollutes the most according to Violation Tracker. Solvay comes right after TOTAL S.A, with an environmental fine that amounted to $450,000 in 2016 and another one that amounted to $31,500 in 2015. L'Oréal, Schneider Electric, and Sodexo did not have any environmental fines over the last two years. Thus, some companies still need to work towards the respect of environmental laws and regulations, especially TOTAL S.A. and Solvay in this case. But it is worth mentioning that they effectively understood that issue and therefore, are implementing improvement strategies to lessen their environmental impacts.
Then, I noticed that all companies were promoting anti-corruption and had various projects aim to help communities in different ways. For instance, Sodexo fight against hunger and fmalnutrition, through a dedicated not-for-profit and independent organization: Stop Hunger. Moreover, All companies address human rights efficiently. They all provide human rights policies and they all have training programs that engage with their employees.
Finally, ArcelorMittal and Veolia are the only companies that do not describe activities which contribute to achieving SDG 16 in their report and ArcelorMittal did not even published its 2016 report. Indeed, I could not find anything for these two companies whereas I was able to find this information in all other companies' reports. Some companies are doing better than others in their activities aiming to achieve SDG 16 such as Schneider Electric, Solvay and L'Oréal.
Overall, among the seven companies compared, I found that Schneider Electric is the most effective in terms of Sustainable development being the most transparent company. The company is the one that is the most committed to work towards achieving UN sustainable development goals, SDG 16 included. Two other companies that are worth mentioning are L'Oréal which put lots of efforts in becoming more and more sustainable and Solvay which has great projects to help communities.
Barbara LEPERRE
Barbara LEPERRE.....2017-12-04 00:07:07 UTC
Hector Miliotiss+Discussion
The goal of this project was to know better about the waste generated by group member of CAC 40 and analyze the action they have undertaken to be more sustainable, action such as recycling, or changing the energy used.
Once the goal found, I decided to search information about four metrics which was for me and my group relevant if we want to know better about the impact on the environment of companies we choose. The five companies were Carrefour, Accor hotel, Sodexo, Pernod Ricard and Danone and I found interesting to take this group because they are all involved in the food sector.
Thanks to all the data founded, I could know better about the corporate social responsibility of all this companies. It appears that all those groups have the willing to reduce their impact on the environment in managing their waste and in using more and more renewable energy. All the companies have created different strategy on 5 to 10 years to manage the problem of emission of Co2 and the problem of waste. Strategy such as Planet 21 used by Accor Hotel which has helped them to reduce their emission of CO2 by 6,2% between 2011 and 2015.
All the companies involved in our group research have for main goals to reduce their impact in getting a zero-product waste by not over producing and recycling 100% of their waste. One of their goals is to use 100 % of renewable energy.
This project was not easy because it was difficult to find information on internet because even if CSR report are generally posted by companies on internet, the information given by them were not really what I was expected. Generally, to talk about waste they were comparing with past year and we didn’t have the exact amount of waste in tone but only the percentage of increase or decrease from the year n to the year n+1. They give the solution and action they have undertaken but they didn’t give the metrics we need. For example, it was easy to found the amount of recycled waste generated in percent but I couldn’t find the total waste generated in tone.
Thanks to this research I could learn more about CSR responsibilities of companies’ member of CAC 40. I could learn about all the plan they have built to reduce their impact on their environment. Today every big group are involved and want to do business in a sustainable way to meet their own need and letting a better world for the future generation.
However I was surprised to see the lack of transparency of some of companies about different metrics, they all have tendency to show only the positive aspect of their business in avoiding the negative aspect such as waste generated.
Hector Milio.....2017-12-03 23:50:38 UTC
SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production+Discussion
Discussion Question: What has Renault been doing to achieve their goals of being more responsible in their consumption and production?
Renault has a strict process of selecting suppliers that must meet Renault’s corporate and environmental requirements, which are outlined in the guideline distributed to suppliers. Having support and creating an open dialogue with suppliers on CSR issues has enabled new challenges to have been met with the supply of car parts. Standards for suppliers were created in 2004, which are regularly revised, are based on the compliance with the International Labor Organization. Assessments and audits are set up to support suppliers in making the necessary progress in order to meet Renault’s requirements. A team is tasked with helping suppliers raise their standards to meet Renault’s by providing the requires support.
In order to combat the ecological challenges of the transportation sector, Renault has integrated them into its strategy and organizational structure. There are links between environmental activities and other company processes as well as between sites to encourage best practices. There ate teams of specialists at each production site in charge of coordinating environmental improvement actions and compliance with regulatory requirements. Vehicle production focuses on the materials used (raw or recycled), the supply chain, parts, and plants. Between 2013 – 2016, Renault has reduced greenhouse gas emissions generated by the production of each vehicle by 18.8%. They’ve also reached a 17.8% share of renewable energies at manufacturing sites, close to their goal of 20%. Renault’s carbon footprint per vehicle has been reduced 18.2%, only 15% coming from materials and 2.7% coming from production.
% of Water recycled in several CAC 40 companies+Discussion
The goal of this project was to research the 6th Sustainable Development Goals. Clean water is one of the main concerns in the world and it is a fact that many of the waste comes from business, especially big corporates that work in the industrial sector.
Thanks to the sustainability reports that are available to the public through corporate social responsibility actions I had the chance to analyze the metric "Water Recycled (%) (G4-EN10-b)". This metric asks how much percentage of the water used by these companies has a second use or is put through a recycling process. This is a major concern because most utilities use a lot of water just to cool down machines. The contact of this water in the machine in a lot of cases is harmful to the sanity of the water but with a correct use of water treatment it is easily preventable.
I researched 3 companies: Total, Air Liquide and Vinci. Air Liquide showed a 83%, Total 80% and Vinci 77%. Giving an average of 80% of water recycled or reused during their processes.
I found a bit of relief to know that most companies have a very high percent of reusing water for their facilities. Although we need to find a better way to cool down machinery or change completely the procesess so we can leave the water out of it. It is a good measure that companies have good water treatment programs but it is not sustainable in the long term and it must change.
Edwyn+Discussion
Analysis: Waste and Recycling in the CAC 40
This project’s goal was to search for information concerning waste (in general), by assessing 3 of the 40 most powerful French companies, from CAC40. Waste and recycling are part of the actual concerns of the UN, so I decide to choose 3 firms acting in 3 different markets, thus I would obtain a global overview of waste in its different forms, and how company manage to fight against it.
The metrics in this section were all based on amount of waste produced, recycling waste amount, and natural & renewable gas consumption. Comparing the results per year for each company gave us insights about the evolution of anti-waste and recycling actions that those firms settled.
The first firm, Sodexo, is a leader in the dishes made for schools and universities, but also a highly active company concerning sustainability, especially food waste and recycling. The second one, Pernot-Ricard, world-wide leader in wine & spirits, manages to limit waste concerning water, and renewing it, and finally, Danone, eternal leader of the yogurt and milk market.
New measures are appearing, projects are born such as the WasteWatch program, powered by LeanPath and created by Sodexo. This worldwide initiative aims to identify waste causes (related to food) and elaborate an action plan to reduce it. Sodexo sites using this plan are supposed reduce by 45% their food waste within 2 to 6 months. Sodexo also created the IFWC (International Food Waste Coalition), that aims to reduce food eaten outside home waste (PepsiCo and McCain are also part of the coalition). Finally, a food tracking system permitted the company to avoid over 483 tons of pre-consumer food waste (over 1.07 million pounds). Danone on its side, claimed that their goal was to cut by 50% CO2 emission by 2030. Concerning recycling water, Danone mentioned in their 2016 CSR report that they are building up water cycles on their farming sites to save a re-use water to decrease waste. Yet, the full scope is to cut gas emission. Pernot Ricard’s main sustainable goal was to cut emission related to natural gas consumption and protect its own sites (“Protéger son terroir” – Suze brand example). Their CSR 2015 report was encouraging, unfortunately, the group did not follow its engagements: P.R increased its CO2 gas emission by 3.4% from 2015 to 2016.
Overall, efforts are made by these French national firms and means to achieve long term fixed goals are increasing every year, it will not be sufficient to achieve the target objectives. The 2015 UN report concerning sustainable development goals (SDGs) showed to the world an alarming situation: most of the previous goals have not been reached, but many new ones appeared such as: End hunger; Fight waste and recycle in “Climate action” goal.
This project underlined the limit of the figures provided by the companies: most of the figures were percentages and there is no indication with exact numbers, probably to avoid deep external researches. Most of the firms communicate the information they want; those figures are meticulously filtered before being published. Another disappointed point is that any of these 3 companies communicate clearly about the amount they recycle. Many reports mention the amount of waste avoided within the year, but only few concerning recycling figures. Both Danone and Sodexo sell and produce perishable goods, which implies a high risk of waste, and it is nearly impossible to reach the 0% waste, as there will always remain stocks. The best alternative would be to increase partnerships with NGOs and program fighting malnutrition worldwide, or even local ones (for example by distributing unsold goods that would initially end up in trashes because of strict regulations in the food industry). Pernod Ricard strongly supports the UN SDGs especially concerning saving water, recycling it and cleaning it (goal 6 “Clean Water &Sanitation”).
It is encouraging for the future when we take a look to these actions, projects, program or partnerships because the more they increase, the more changes may occur. But I strongly believe that transparency in communication of information may be a priority too. Most of the companies only highlight their “sustainable action” and all of its encouraging results but nothing else, and we need the total amount of information required to completely trust those firms’ actions mentioned in their CSR report. Furthermore, recycling measures are still low compared to other ones, and finding new ones may unlock the actual situation and help to reach SDGs.
SDG 13: Climate Action+Discussion
Discussion Question: What has Renault been doing to reduce its environmental footprint?
Renault was the first carmaker to make a public environmental commitment to shrink its global carbon footprint which aligns perfectly with the 13th sustainable goal established by the UN.
Since 2005 the group has been committed to shrinking the environmental footprint of its vehicles across the life cycle and from one generation to the next. To measure those efforts, it carries out a Life cycle analysis (LCA) for each new model. The internationally renowned methodology measures the five potential environmental impacts of a car over its life cycle: global warming; the depletion of natural resources; low-level ozone; the acidification of lakes, soil and forests; and eutrophication (oxygen depletion) in aquatic environments.
The group’s most recently built plant, opened in Wuhan, China in early 2016, exemplifies the group’s approach in production. Equipped with the latest technologies in energy efficiency – LED lighting, recovery of the thermal energy contained in air emitted to the atmosphere – the plant recycles 40% of its industrial effluent discharge for internal use and uses paints with mainly water-based solvents.
It is designing vehicles that are more economical in terms of materials, 95% of their mass being recyclable or recoverable. It is also developing technical solutions and industrial sectors in the collection, reuse, reconditioning and recycling of parts and materials issuing from the 390,000 end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) processed in 2015.
Because cars account for 17% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, the Renault-Nissan Alliance is working to be a part of the solution to environmental challenges. Renault-Nissan Alliance decided to officially partner COP21 in 2016 by providing a fleet of electric vehicles. The initiative was a world first for an international conference of this scale! Since 2010, Renault has with its partner Nissan proposed the immediate solution of electric vehicles, which have a reduced overall carbon footprint and can be powered by 100% renewable energy. The Renault-Nissan Alliance, the world leader in zero emission electric mobility in use, having sold over 300,000 electric vehicles worldwide since its launch, is on the leading edge of the transition to low-carbon mobility.
In 2015, before COP21 event, Renault published its climate commitments – notably the 3% reduction of its global carbon footprint per vehicle per year between 2010 and 2016 and the use of 20% renewable energies by 2020 – on the NAZCA Climate Action website set up by the United Nations framework agreement on climate change.
Lastly, Renault is working to integrate a growing share of recycled materials in new vehicles (over 30% on cars produced in Europe).
SDG 10: Reduced inequalities+Discussion
Research Question: How has Renault been able to achieve its goal of reducing inequalities?
In accordance with Renault’s priorities and values, the company has set a goal to “create motivating working conditions that respect human rights and well-being so as to attract and develop employees in all our countries; promote diversity and equal opportunity.” Renault Group’s objective is to increase the skills of as many employees as possible to help them make progress and to support their development within the company. In 2015, employees received over 3,000,000 hours of training in an effort to help develop its human capital through critical skills. Renault’s engagement is at 75%, according to Hay Group, a measurement which considers the Group’s capacity to motivate people to come and work for the company.
As far as diversity, Renault seeks to motivate employees, produce a variety of talents, and provoke innovation. Renault’s target it to recruit women to account for 30% of technical positions and 50% in sales and marketing positions and is also creating Women@Renault, an internal social network, which serves as a place for sharing best practices and has over 4,500 members in 12 countries. Renault is also supporting the onboarding of young people in the workplace, aiming for 50% of new hires to be under 30 years old. By the end of 2015, the work-study programs consisted of over 1,200 students on internships at Renault.
Renault plans to full 40% of key positions with people of international backgrounds. At the end of 2015, this number was at 38.4%.
Renault has also been more inclusive of people with disabilities when it comes to developing more accessible workstations and through prevention and awareness-raising. The Group also plans to recruit young people with disabilities on work-study contracts with an internal group of over 1,000 members who support the plan.
Meghan Burns.....2017-12-03 18:27:39 UTC
SDG 5: Schneider Electrics+Discussion
How does Schneider Electrics promote gender equality?
Schneider Electrics leaders have signed up to the Woman Empowerment Principles (WEP) to promote gender balance at all levels across multiple territories. The Women Empowerment Principles are a set of Principles for business offering guidance on how to empower women in the workplace. Senior Schneider Electric leaders have pledged to the following:
Establish high-level corporate leadership for gender equality
Treat all women and men fairly at work - respect and support human rights and none discrimination
Ensure the health, safety and well-being of all women and men workers
Promote education, training and professional development for women
Implement enterprise development, supply chain and marketing practices that empower women
Promote equality through community initiatives and advocacy
Measure and publicly report on progress to achieve gender equality
40 country presidents of Schneider Electric, the global specialist in energy management and automation, ratified the global Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) set out by UN Women and the Global Compact. These 40 leaders oversee more than 90 percent of Schneider Electric employees.WEP signatories publicly commit to making every possible effort to provide men and women with the same opportunities and enable them to reach their potential. They must also engage employees in business development in addition to promoting a process of ongoing gender equality improvements across the organization.
Pursuing gender equality is a critical priority for Schneider Electric. The Group is convinced that team diversity is a prerequisite for successful business. Promoting an HR policy that empowers women at every level is one of the Group’s strategic objectives, helping to boost the attractiveness of its employer brand, as well as its performance. It is also part of the company’s broader commitment to diversity and inclusion.For several years now, Schneider Electric has been actively committed to better integrating women at every level of the company, both locally and globally. It does so through four main ways:
1.Leaders who are also role models, in particular by their commitment to the WEPs;
2.Increasing the number of initiatives in support of women empowerment and career development, especially through its Women in Leadership workshops;
3.Organizing change management campaigns, while actively participating in initiatives such as #HeForShe IMPACT 10x10x10, launched by the United Nations in 2015;
4.Aligning all of its major human resource processes and policies with this objective, particularly through its equal pay policy.
Marie-Michelle DINDE EBANDA.....2017-12-03 12:24:39 UTC
SDG 5 for Schneider+Discussion
Is Schneider Electrics promoting gender equality ?
SDG 5+Discussion
Does Schneider Electrics promoted gender equality ?
Marie-Michelle DINDE EBANDA.....2017-12-03 12:20:26 UTC
SDG 4 for Schneider+Discussion
Research question: Is Schneider working towards delivering quality education and if so how are they doing this?
Schneider tries to do something to provide quality education in developing countries. Therefore, they trained over 120,000 people in over 20 different countries in engineering entrepreneurship since 2009. But they also have a special teaching program named “teaching over sea”: Employee-volunteers contribute to training missions during their holidays, demonstrating their personal engagement. They have carried out missions worldwide, offering basic training in electricity, sales negotiations, industrial automation, communication, marketing, and more. Franck Serpollet from Schneider Electric France had the amazing opportunity to contribute to the Nomade des Mers journey by helping to build low-tech applications on board.
So over the past four years Schneider carried out 1065 teacher missions in more than 70 countries. But this is not enough for them. Schneider’s goal is to provide solar energy in schools so by the year 2020 over 190000 students will have access to energy for educational tools.
SDG 7 for Schneider Electrics+Discussion
Research Question: Is Schneider Electrics achieving its goals of providing affordable and clean energy?
Schneider Electrics is a proud innovative leader in global sustainable development. Their steadfast dedication and innovation has been awarded numerous times, for example, they are in the top 25 companies in Fortune magazine’s Change the World ranking; an Industry leader in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI); and they are part of the CDP Climate A list for the sixth consecutive year. Furthermore, they have joined the FTSE4Good Global and Europe indices. Schneider’s continuous commitment towards the Sustainable Development Goals is evident through their actions as a company as well.
In terms of working towards providing affordable and clean energy, Schneider Electrics has been actively and continuously participating in COP22. Created in November of 2016, the COP22 initiative aims at fighting global warming, taking an active part to mobilize civil society and to convince governments that the technologies exist to help reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Specifically, Schneider contributed by developing sustainability awareness and mobilization together with other public and private stakeholders, taking part in negotiations through constituencies and federations representing civil society and business to underline the fact that business is ready and willing to contribute to fighting climate change, and participating through the Schneider Electric Foundation as a partner of BALAD_E, an event designed by Art of Change 21.
The 2016-2017 Corporate Sustainability Report of Schneider Electrics reveals that roughly 2.3 billion people do not have any access to electricity or reliable access to electricity. The CSR report also highlights that the world’s energy consumption will increase by more than 50% by the year 2050, therefore presenting the world with the energy paradox. Schneider electrics has developed a software system called the EcoStruxure which they believe is the answer to this complex global energy problem. Schneider is incorporating energy management, automation, and software to make it possible for customers to compete in today’s digital economy with one, interoperable Internet of Things architecture, the EcoStruxure.
Schneider Electric’s innovations are founded on safety, reliability, efficiency, sustainability, and connectivity. They continue to strive towards providing connected, efficient, and sustainable products and solutions that help customers thrive in the face of today’s megatrends: industrialization, urbanization, and digitization.
To conclude this report, it is evident that Schneider is committed to providing clean and affordable energy through its Eco Struxure software system. The company continues to prove its commitment though innovative solutions set at contributing towards the 7th Sustainable Business Goal.
Mikayla McAlduff.....2017-12-03 12:07:13 UTC
Report of gender equality in luxury industry within CAC 40+Discussion
This project aims to analyze the gender equality in the luxury industry within CAC 40. 2 related companies, Kering Group and LVMH, will be explained.
The luxury industry is once considered as a male-dominated industry although it mainly focused on women’s purchasing power. Males used to have dominated influence not only in creativity level but also in business operation level.
However, with the rising awareness of human rights, the society now encourages diversity to a great extent. The first metric value is designed to see whether the company has a diversity & inclusion policy to prevent discriminations on the grounds of age, gender, disability, etc. The answer is affirmative for both of them. Among all diversity policies within the two groups, gender equality has been stressed as it is written on the official website of Kering: “while Kering addresses the issue of diversity in all its aspects, particular emphasis is placed on advancing gender equality.”
We can learn that both Kering Group and LVMH have promoted gender equality-related programs or policies. For example, Kering has set up Kering foundation to combat violence against women. Also, in 2010 Kering launched its Leadership & Gender Diversity programme to promote the access of women to the top positions and, more generally, to distill a culture of gender equality within the Group.
Meanwhile, Gender equality is an integral part of LVMH’s corporate culture, too. The Recruitment Code of Conduct has been accompanied by the “Recruitment without Discrimination” training program rolled out across the Group. This training program has been mandatory for all human resource managers involved in recruiting since 2011. Besides, the LVMH group organized a series of in-house events around the world and reaffirmed its commitment to female leadership, on the occasion of International Women’s Day on March 8, 2016.
What mentioned before are just parts of the two groups gender equality policies, and they all point out that Kering Group and LVMH Group have tried to establish a gender equality atmosphere not only within the organization but also in the whole community. Following metrics will focus on the percentage of women in the total workforce, on board of directors, in executive committees, in management positions, etc. These metrics will help to figure out to what extent have the 2 Groups done to realize gender equality.
For Kering Group, there are 23230 female employees accounting for 58% of the total workforce. 64% of people on the company’s board of directors and 31% of people in Executive Committees are women. The CEO of the Group is Man, while 51% of management positions are filled by women.
LVMH Group has 99512 female employees in total. 74% of the total workforce are women, which is higher than Kering Group. 33.3% of people on the company’s board of directors and 10% of people in Executive Committees are women. The CEO of the Group is also a Man, while 64% of management positions are filled by women. 70.3% skilled jobs are filled by women.
Both two groups are doing well in gender equality as more than half of the employees are female within two categories. Also, more than half of management positions are held by women in both of the 2 Groups. Besides, the percentage of women in administrative/sales staff and production staff is respectively 82% and 56%.
However, the data show that there are some slight differences between the 2 Groups. LVMH appears to have a bottom-up approach as their percentage of women in the top position is much lower than the rate of women in the total workforce, women in management positions, women in administrative/sales staff and women in production staff. When it comes to Kering, we can find out that the gender equality is almost at all levels of the organization. The Percentage of women in top positions is even higher than women in the total workforce. So, we can conclude that women are facing fewer barriers in accessing to a senior management position in Kering than in LVMH.
So, in conclusion, we can learn that both of the two groups can be considered as having good performance in gender equality. However, Kering is doing better than LVMH since its gender quality is realized better at all levels of the organization. LVMH should continue its efforts to make progress. In general, the luxury industry within CAC 40 has achieved gender equality for the remarkable efforts Kering Group and LVMH Groups have done.
By Lu Han
Danone: SDG 6 and SDG 13+Discussion
Research Question: Is Danone Group successful in meeting the Sustainable Development Goals that it has set for itself?
According to their website, Danone is focused on 3 pillars of sustainable development – healthier eating, serving everyone and for a sustainable world. Danone seeks to promote healthier eating by designing food that is better and more nutritious for the people. Danone also aims to make a positive impact on millions of people, from employees to customers. To achieve that, Danone is committed to sustainable production and use of natural resources to achieve its long-term goal of net zero carbon.
The company's total energy consumption has been 4800 gigajoules in 2016. Danone wanted cut its carbon footprint by 30% in the four years to 2012.To protect climate Danone saved 7 million tons of CO2 in 2016 on their direct scope of responsibility. Additionally, Danone reduced 50.1% of CO2 intensity since 2007 on their direct scope of responsibility and 50% of target in intensity by 2030 on their full scope of responsibility. In 2016 Danone has produced an amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of 23000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent. Danone has been indirectly responsible for an amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of 915,746 tons of CO2 equivalent in 2015.
Regarding to the goal to save water, Danone has achieved 100% compliance in all sites discharging wastewater to nature by 2020 and 60% reduction of water consumption in factories by 2020 vs 2000 baseline. 100% of their waters division sites run spring audit by 2020 for natural water ressources protection. The company has withdrawn 71 000 cubic metres water in 2016.
Another goal of Danone is to reduce used packaging material and waste produced by packaging. The organization has generated a total amount of waste of 434,000 metric tonnes in 2016. Therefore Danone wants to use already 25% rPET by 2020 in water plastic bottles. 100% of Danone’s paper and board are sourced from responsibly managed forests. 10 priority countries of Danone have already implemented a "turn waste into resource" plan by 2020.
One key issue when environmental protection and food production meet is agriculture. That is why Danone wants to implement a sustainable agriculture. 140,000 farmers supply their milk to Danone every day. Danone targets that 75% those will be sustainable by 2020. In a Sustainable sourcing roadmap the origin of milk is reported since end of 2016.
Danone Group focuses on these Sustainable Development Goals: SDG3 Good Health and Well Being, SDG6 Clean Water and Sanitation, SDG8 Decent Work and Economic Growth, SDG12 Responsible Consumption and Production, SDG13 Climate Action and SDG14 Life Below Water.
by Miram Gomaa and Sarah Müller
(Metrics are answered via the account of Miram Gomaa in the
project: PRME Data collection - core metrics for universities)
Waste and Recycling in the CAC 40 analysis+Discussion
The purpose of this project was to research the Waste Generated by compagnies of the CAC 40 and evaluate they actions towards being more sustainable and see if as well as being economical leader, they were leaders in the cause for environment.
Pollution and environment being a worldwide current issue, I found it interesting to evaluate exactly how the companies we know and buy from are facing this issue.
I therefor started collecting data and researching information about three different companies. Danone a French multinational food corporation, Carrefour a French multinational retailer and Pernod Ricard a French company that produces distilles beverages. These three company involved in the food and beverages, I found it interesting to see how they were facing risk as a part of this waste is consumable food.
From the data that I have collected, I can affirm that the general trend is for the compagnies to be involved in the waste management. They have all planned and started finding ways of reducing their general waste over the years. For instance, Danone is currently recycling 90% percent of their waste generated in packaging. As well as Carrefour that reduced its general food waste by50% by 2025.
The positive point we can pull from the observation the companies actions are that in each cases each company is trying to improve their waste impact by reducing the general amount that they are creating. They are all planning to continue these reductions to in the future either recycle 100% of their waste and reuse it or manage to create zero product waste by not over producing. The notion we must also into account is the fact that these multination companies are either producers or resellers of perishable goods (food and drinks) where waste is waste and can not be recycled. If these companies manage to implement their actions correctly they will on one hand reduce their environmental impact but also contribute into the fight against hunger.
On the negative side, after researching the metric I needed to answer my project which was “Waste and Recycle in the CAC 40” I realised that these were very hard to find. I was expecting more transparency from the economical leaders and pioneers. Whilst completing my research, I would find their plan about their future improvement and the positive actions they have started implementing in their companies but these were never quantified in a mesurable way. For instance Carrefour had recycled 71.6% of their waste generated but the initial quantity in Tones was no were to be found and the same happenned for Sodexo. I believe that these informations should be more accessible to the general public as it has a direct impact on the environment but also could change the way people react towards these brands.
These compagnies are therefor acting in a eco responsible way as they are all trying to improve they waste and recycling impact. Their actions are also very important as these all represent more than 50% decrease in waste created and more than 70% in the waste recycled. These changes will impact the environment in a positive way as well as show the way and example to other compagnies in the future. But they should also be more transparent toward the divulgation of their information. These compagnies have a tendency of only showing the positive aspects of their brands but not divulging the rest.
Safety and Security+Discussion
Journey to Zero
- reducing how our lost time injury frenquency rate from 2.50 per million hours worked in 2008 to 0.8 in 2013
10 golden rules of safety have been discovered to help the company managing workers injuries.
International safety and security standard (18001) reached in 2007 : 97% and aim to attain 100% soon
Goal: reduce our lost time injuries to 0.75 incidents per million hours worked in 2014 and 2015 cut this further to 0.65
Gender inequality in employment analysis and comparison - Pernod Ricard – Total – Schneider Electric+Discussion
Pernod Ricard – Total – Schneider Electric are the three companies I chose to analyse and compare to represent the CAC 40.
As I mentioned before the project I created “Gender equality within the CAC 40” has the purpose to see if the French elite companies are working toward the reduction of inequality between men and women. This project is essentially focused on the employment theme.
First of all, Pernod Ricard is the company between those three which employs the highest rate of women as in general, taking into account the subsidiaries (Mumm, Martell, Perrier-Jouët, Malibu, Ricard), women represent 36% of the employees in 2016.
Coming second, Total the same year had 32.4% of its employees being women, on the same year.
Lastly Schneider Electric was late in 2016 compared to the two others with only 30% of women working there. However, the company has planned an objective of 40% of women employees to reach end 2017, so we should soon now if things progressed or not.
Climbing the ladder in companies is extremely important for career and personal progress, therefore, I wanted to check if women and men were giving the same chances or not, if it is the case, the rate of women in the management and the rate of women employed in the company should remain approximately the same.
Pernod Ricard has a rate of 34% of manager women which is close from the women rate within the company, it means that women are almost given the same chances to climb the ladder as men do in this company. One person out of three in Management position is a woman.
For Total the rate of women drops by nearly 7% regarding management positions, and only reaches 25.5% which means out of four people in the management board, one women can be find.
Schneider Electric also sees its rate dropping even more as only 22% of managers are women, making it an 8% different with the global number of women working there.
It is interesting to take note that the three different companies have a man as CEO which the highest position in the company, so the more the position is high, the more women are rare within the companies of the CAC 40 I selected.
In conclusion, even if the CAC 40 companies are making some efforts to reduce inequality between men and women regarding employment, there is still a long way to go as the most interesting position of those companies are only filled with men and the overall of women employed does not reach 50% of the total number of employees there. Plus, Except for Pernod Ricard, those women are not giving the same chances as men to get a status of manager. The companies have still to improve regarding this aspect and should continue to apply their gender equality plan until it gets better. We would believe that the France elite companies are socially more advances than some others but from this analysis it is not always the case. Out of the three companies, Pernod Ricard is the one which achieves better results and is more fair toward genders.
Gender inequality analysis and comparison within Carrefour, Orange and Airbus+Discussion
The purpose of our Project was to evaluate if gender inequality is handled in a better way in powerful elite French companies than in most of other firms, and to highlight some possible improvements regarding specific areas.
Hence, I decided to collect data from three different companies, two being French (meaning Orange and Carrefour), compared with Airbus, European leader firm in the Aviation industry, and second world leader. In order to have the most recent, relevant and consistent information, all collected data is from 2016.
Overall, we can see through each company's Corporate Social Responsibility Annual Report that they are all concerned about Gender Equality. Indeed, they all provide information and statistics with regards to its female employees' activity, place and development within the company. It is worth pointing out some differences between them though.
First, metrics collected was aimed to highlight three main aspects that are the following: finding the percentage of management positions filled by women within the company, the percentage of female employees within the company, and whether the CEO is a man of a woman.
Hence, Carrefour's 2016 Registration Document shows that 39.20% of management positions were filled by women in 2016, against 27.30% in Orange and 11.00% in Airbus. This represents an issue as these results are actually very low. Next, Carrefour's women employees represents more than a half of its total number of employees (exactly 57.5%) which is good, whereas Orange's women employees represent only 36.1% of the company's total workforce. Airbus is significantly behind, with only 17% of women in its workforce. Lastly, the last metric to collect was whether the CEO is a male or a female, and all companies are currently headed by men.
Those result definitely show that there is still a long way to go in order for companies to fight against gender inequality. But it is worth mentioning that they effectively understood that issue and therefore, are implementing improvement strategies to lessen gender inequalities.
To illustrate this, Carrefour shows its involvement regarding women professional development by offering a Women Leader Program, aimed to make sure that women play a full and effective role in the workplace and have a full access to all management functions. On the other hand, Orange currently monitors workplace gender equality by implementing a rule which states that 35% of recruitment has to be women. The company also wants to increase the proportion of women in management bodies, with the objective being: 35% of management positions will have to be filled by female workers in 2020. Lastly, Airbus' commitment to empowering women and girls and advancing women in the workplace can be seen through equal employment opportunities, the company is determined to increase the number of women it recruits to 30%.
Even if we can see some efforts made by companies in terms of gender equality improvements, there are still some negative points shown in their Registration Documents. For instance, there was a decrease in the percentage of female employees within the Carrefour company between 2015 and 2016, as they represented 57.6% of the total workforce in 2015, against 57.5% in 2016; whereas Carrefour's staff slightly increased by 0.8% between these dates. Besides, all CEOs are men and as it is not discussed in the reports, this seems to be maintained as it is in the future. Lastly, the biggest issue concerns Airbus, still lacking of female employees and female managers since years ago. This is maybe due to the fact that this company is part of the Aviation industry, which tends to interest more male engineers and technicians than female ones. Lastly, all the three companies studied did not give any information regarding their male-to-female remuneration basic ratio.
In conclusion, we can say that companies are more and more concerned by gender inequality, as they currently implement strategies as well as objectives in order to handle it properly. Furthermore, this analysis has provided me reasons to think that powerful French companies such as Orange and Carrefour tend to handle gender inequality better than European companies such as Airbus, but we must take into account that they are not part of the same industry. As a result, it could be interesting and maybe more relevant to create another Research Question, which collects the same information, but from companies within the same industry.
Pauline BENNETOT
Why are there not more companies disclosing the amount of waste they recycle?+Discussion
I would have thought that tracking the amount of waste recycled would be standard for companies that take sustainability reporting seriously. I'm surprised to see this is often not reported. Does anyone have any idea why this is the case? Is it harder to measure the amount of waste that goes for recycling than to measure the total amount of waste generated for some reason? Could it be omitted because the figure is low and the companies who don't report this tend not to recycle much of their waste? Are there industries where waste recycling is impractical?