Quick Analysis

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