Publicis Groupe is an intellectual services company serving its corporate clients, with more than 103,000 employees in some 100 countries. Teams work in "open space" offices, most of which are located in capitals or major cities, and spread over one or more floors. After the Covid‑19 pandemic, employees have returned to the office: the entire week in some countries, and in other countries, the flexibility around remote working is three days a week in the office. The negative environmental impacts related to the Company’s activities are mainly measured in carbon emissions, calculated and explained in Section 4.1.6.
For several years, the Company has been committed to a carbon emissions reduction plan, strengthened following the validation of its climate objectives by SBTi, which call for a 50% reduction by 2030 and a 90% reduction by 2040, and the achievement of the Net Zero objective see details in Section 4.1.8.
The Company may be faced with physical risks linked to climate change in various cities (flooding, high heat, etc.) that could potentially disrupt its operations and adversely affect the health of employees, as described in the risk analysis in Section 4.1.2.2 below. Mitigation measures have been defined and taken, both in terms of business continuity and support for employees who may face difficulties.
Publicis Groupe supports its clients in their communication and strategic transformation, integrating the ecological transition with changes to their product or service portfolios aimed at their own clients, who are keen to consume differently, and to better integrate environmental issues into their purchasing decisions and choices. Publicis Groupe is in a privileged position to change behavior and social and societal representations. This is the approach taken by the Company through the priority it gives to Responsible Marketing & Technology to improve the professional practices of its activities and the standards applied, as explained in the examples presented in Section 4.3.
As indicated in the Duty of Care Plan (see Section 4.3.10), more detailed work was carried out in 2021 and 2022, with the help of an external firm, to better determine the risks of climate change on the Groupe, by analyzing several scenarios. An ad hoc working group was set up, the Climate Task Force, managed by the Groupe’s CSR Department with the support of the Risk Management, Finance, IT and GSO (infrastructure and information systems security), Legal, Real Estate and Insurance Departments and with operational staff. This work made it possible to map risks and opportunities with regard to various scenarios, aligned with those of the IPCC (United Nations). Twelve working scenarios were defined and examined one by one, with the help of the external firm, and aligned with the method used by the Group’s Risk Management (time horizon, frequency, financial impacts, mitigation measures). Given the Groupe’s intellectual services activities and its global geographical presence, two scenarios were selected amongst the twelve to guide the internal work:
The work helped to identify and prioritize the various risks and opportunities associated with these scenarios based on the typology established by the TCFD, which distinguishes between:
1 Physical risks: they are associated with the impacts of climate change due to the geographical location of the offices, employees and data centers, which may affect employees and their working environment, alter the continuity of service for clients and the normal operation of the company. Six scenarios were examined taking into account rising temperatures, rising sea levels, extreme rainfall with flooding, major fires and tornadoes.
