A summary of CSR or ESG key indicators is presented to the General Shareholders’ Meeting annually.
The CSR Department coordinates an internal CSR Steering Committee that brings together the Groupe’s main corporate functions (finances, HR, audit, legal, procurement, risk management, etc.). The CSR Steering Committee plays a role in the detailed work done on integrated reporting. The CSR Department works in project mode with various teams worldwide, using a dual approach: “push” to help with the roll out of internal initiatives and to push forward certain issues, and “pull”, with the comprehensive steering of non-financial reporting.
The Internal Control and Internal Audit teams verify, during the course of their work carried out throughout the year, that the agencies correctly implement the CSR reporting processes and have access to historical tracking of data and information.
CSR reporting is done within each Groupe entity with the assistance of the CSR Champions in the agency and the support of the teams in the shared services centers (Re:Sources) who are closely involved from the earliest stages of the reporting. The internal guide, entitled 2021 CSR Guidelines, is updated annually; it defines the required collection and validation processes at the different levels, as well as the content and definitions of the various indicators (over 90 quantitative and qualitative indicators). This manual was distributed to a cross-functional working group of roughly 100 people and 1,000 contributors during preparatory online sessions held from October 2021 to January 2022. In the course of its data checking and verification process (of each indicator per agency), the Groupe's CSR Department was in direct contact with all the local teams during the final consolidation phase.
All of the quantitative data and qualitative information is checked and analyzed by the Groupe CSR Department, who compiles the consolidated reporting for the whole Groupe. Bureau Veritas auditors carried out 108 so-called “on-site” audits in the branches, but were carried out remotely due to local health measures: United States, Colombia, Costa Rica, Germany, United Kingdom, France, India and China, as well as: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Spain, Italy, Poland, Russia, Mexico, Singapore, i.e. 17 countries representing 55.68% of the total workforce. The whole CSR report is checked by the external auditors (see “Opinion” in Section 4.9) in accordance with regulatory requirements: they check the consolidated quantitative and qualitative data, by conducting random checks in all Groupe entities. They also analyze the processes and explanations provided, as well as the consistency of the exercise as a whole.
Non-financial reporting was prepared in accordance with article L. 225-102-1 of the French Commercial Code and with reference to articles L. 205-101-1, R. 225-105 and R. 225-105-1 on corporate social and environmental transparency obligations and auditing methods. The reporting takes into consideration several European directives (European Climate Taxonomy, Non-Financial Reporting Directive & Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation) as well as the French laws on the energy transition and green growth, non-financial reporting, but also on the fight against food waste, as well as on the modernization of social dialog and the securing of career paths. This also integrates the law regarding Duty of Care and the Sapin 2 Law (anti-corruption), as well as the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
The other guidelines that the Groupe voluntarily follows are :
The summary and ESG indicators, including the cross-reference table with all the selected benchmarks is public in CSR Smart data https://publicisgroupe-csr-smart-data.com/en/.
