2019 Annual financial report

4.5 ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE CHANGE

By signing up to the United Nations Global Compact in 2003 and the Caring for Climate pledge in 2007, the Company has taken a proactive approach to implementing non-resource intensive solutions and improving the monitoring of its environmental impacts. 2019 will mark a turning point, with a change of scale in terms of combating climate change.

Eco-friendly design is now at the heart of client campaigns in more and more agencies. Teams are looking for partnerships to make projects more sustainable using new approaches such as the circular economy or sharing economy. Eco-friendly design and assessment approaches have been trialed and the results are convincing. These voluntary initiatives make it possible to associate customers, suppliers and partners.

Lastly, employees are very much involved in internal initiatives, especially daily eco-friendly actions, to limit environmental impacts, the two most significant of which are due to travel and transportation, and energy use.

/  Environmental policy and impacts

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS

Publicis Groupe's environmental impacts are centred on five areas:
JOURNEYS
Reduce journeys and their impacts
ENERGY:
Reduce energy consumption and increase renewable sources
RAW MATERIALS:
(paper, water, plastics)
Reduce consumption, use ecological products, set up practice for zero plastic
WAST:
Improve waste separation and recycling solutions
SBTI OBJECTIVE:
Scenario 1.5° for 2030

4.5.1 Adapting to climate change

In view of the challenges facing society in the face of the climate emergency, Publicis Groupe has committed to the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) in order to set its targets for 2030, by following the Paris Agreement commitments and the 1.5° scenario. These targets will be set in the course of the year 2020.

The action plan will be based on three pillars:

I. Reducing all direct agency impacts by more than 40% by 2030: primarily energy and travel, including waste reduction (100% recycled) & motivating employees to implement solutions to reduce all impacts of everyday operations;
II. Achieving 100% of the energy consumed generated directly from renewable sources by 2030: with 37.1% renewables in 2019, the plan calls for a 6% improvement in total renewables per year by 2030;
III. Covering 100% of irreducible impacts through offsetting mechanisms by 2030; carbon offsetting being considered as a last resort; This action plan requires centralized investment. It is overseen and monitored by the CSR Department. It has been adopted by the Management Board and presented to the Supervisory Board which has approved it.