Priority 1: ensuring ethical and responsible corporate governance
Aware of the specific responsibility that its CSR commitments entail, the Lagardère group has made ethical corporate governance one of its main priorities. This is based on respecting internal or external French, European or international rules in the form of charters, codes, guidelines, standards, regulations and laws.
These include the non-restrictive framework of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) developed in 2015 by the United Nations, which is being gradually established among businesses as a universal CSR framework. The SDGs, which follow on from the 10 principles of the Global Compact, of which Lagardère became a signatory in 2003, cover all essential sustainable development issues between now and 2030, from “zero hunger” to peace, as well as reducing inequality, combating climate change, gender equality and high quality education.
A number of the goals are highly relevant to the Group’s activities and make it possible to identify the civic role that Lagardère intends to play on the global stage in the years to come.
The Lagardère group is also committed to respecting all its compliance obligations, particularly in three major areas.
That of duty of care, by rolling out each year the plan based on the French law relating to duty of care for parent companies and ordering companies. Initiated by means of mapping the risks of its value chain in 2017, the plan included at the end of 2020 the provision of an ethics reporting line on its website for all stakeholders, the operation of which is explained in the Code of Ethics updated in 2020.
That of personal data protection, for which the Group took action with the close support of the Managing Partners to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018. The creation of a steering committee with divisions under the responsibility of the DPO (Data Protection Officer at the level of the Managing Partners), as well as the creation of a network of officers within the Group’s divisions have allowed in particular for the validation of various tools, methods and policies to identify the processing, legal framework and technical protection of personal data.
That of combating corruption and respecting international economic sanctions, for which the Group has also adopted procedures as well as training and awareness-raising programmes at all levels of hierarchy among the most exposed groups.
Key figures
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 are being gradually established among businesses as a universal CSR framework.