ORSE (Observatoire sur la Responsabilité Sociétale des Entreprises)
Focus on Partner - Summer 2008
In this interview, Francois Fatoux, General Director of ORSE - Observatoire sur la Responsabilite Societale des Enterprises, talks about the latest developments of the Laboratory on Stakeholder Engagement, as well of other projects undertaken by ORSE, CSR Europe's national partner organisation in France.
Over the past years, ORSE has been working on the subject of socially responsible investment (SRI). What are French companies doing in this respect?
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| Francois Fatoux |
SRI was introduced in France in the 2000s. Today, all large French banks and insurance companies have a SRI supply. In 2008, SRI represents approximately 20 billion euros cut down into three categories of clients: investors (mainly pension funds), employees' saving plans (with a strong commitment of trade union promotion), and individual clients (retail banking).
SRI in France is truly mainly in a "best class" logic which allows the asset manager to select companies based on their social and environmental impacts rated by Vigéo (French rating agency, the first agency in Europe today). Moreover, SRI is a subject of negotiation in companies between human resources directions and employees' trade unions.
ORSE is facilitating a CSR Laboratory on stakeholder engagement. In your view, what are the main challenges for companies regarding this issue?
Multinational companies are seeking new forms of self-regulation in response to a global economic environment where the issues at hand are beyond the reach of national legislation. In the absence of global governance models, some companies have established intermediary so-called "soft law" instruments such as NGO's partnerships, or CSR / international framework agreements signed with global unions.
Contractualising with stakeholders at a global level is something recent, especially when it comes to external stakeholders. One of the challenges is to measure the efficiency of the engagement. This approach is so recent and points sometimes to things that are difficult to measure.
There has been an intense debate regarding the law compelling French companies to report on their environmental and social impacts. What is in your opinion the impact of this law for French companies?
The NRE Law has been a catalyst for the French companies to start formalising their extra financial reporting in 2001. With the new government elected in 2007, the question was recently raised to enlarge the scope of concerned companies (non quoted ndlr) and to reinforce the obligation.
What are in your view key CSR topics on the agenda for French companies?
A key topic is transparency and reporting. Seven years after the adoption of the NRE Law which makes obligation to the companies to publish social and environmental informations, the question of indicators stays a subject of discussion with the debate about the choice of indicators for a consolidate, credible, relevant international reporting.
Diversity issues are also high on the agenda. More and more companies wish to set up a strategy of diversity promotion. They are incited by the government, more particularly on the question of seniors, women and disabled people. The question of work life balance is also an important one.
Thirdly, stakeholder engagement is an important issue. Employees' trade unions in France wish to participate in the CSR strategies - to the definition of issues at stake, as well as at the follow-up and the control of the commitments. Companies agree on this principle but wish to define themselves the forms of the commitments.
As one of the first members of CSR Europe's network of National Partner Organisations, how do you see the development and expansion of the network?
It is important to include new partners as the time goes and the great expansion of membership these last few years is a good sign for mainstreaming CSR in Europe. However, sometimes it is difficult to partner with other organisations in Europe on common subjects where there might be language or cultural barriers.
More information
Read more about ORSE at http://www.orse.org/.
Previous interviews
- RespACT, Austria
- Business in the Community Ireland
- Econsense, Germany
- The Hellenic Network for CSR, Greece
- Responsible Business Forum, Poland
