Vilmorin & Cie - Annual report 2017-2018

ANNUAL REPORT Vilmorin & Cie 102 2017-2018 Social, environmental and societal INFORMATION 4 4.1.1. CSR program Based on the cooperative foundations of Limagrain, its reference shareholder, Vilmorin & Cie launched its Corporate and Social Responsibility (CSR) program in 2012. It has been built on a systemic and partnership-based vision to enable sustainable commitments. It is consistent with the standard ISO 26000, in particular its specific version for the agri-food sector, and on the 10 principles of the Global Compact. Furthermore, each Business Unit can develop a CSR program that is specific to its own challenges. Nevertheless, the Corporate CSR department insures that the programs developed by the Business Units are coherent with that of the Group. 4.1.1.1. The methodology and the prioritization of the stakes Diagnoses and materiality analyses, including feedback from close to 250 internal and external stakeholders, were carried out in various Group entities, chosen for the representativeness of their activities and their responsibilities with regard to markets and Society. This enables the Group to identify and transform environmental, economic and societal issues into development opportunities that benefit as many people as possible while preserving resources. In addition, each Business Unit involved has organized an internal working group to define medium-term objectives and formalize its own action plan. This method, based on co-construction, has made it possible to define a program that meets the most important CSR challenges for each activity, while adapting action plans to the specificities of the business lines and geographical areas. It also insures consistency with the Group’s formalized CSR priorities. As a corollary, several types of programs are run in the Business Units to raise employee awareness, enabling them to take ownership of CSR-related issues, and inform them of commitments and progress in this area. The aim is to insure their involvement, a key element in the success of a CSR approach. This can take the form of information articles in in-house magazines, e-learning modules on topics such as ethics or anti-discrimination, and voluntary and active contributions with NGOs. In order to steer the CSR policy and its continuous improvement, structured and standardized non-financial reporting with a glossary of CSR indicators, shared by the whole Group, has been set up. The results must provide proof not only of the Group’s commitment, but also of the relevance and efficiency of the actions undertaken. 4.1.1.2. Operational organization CSR is managed through a continuous progress approach deployed at the level of Limagrain, Vilmorin & Cie’s reference shareholder, and for which dedicated organization has been established. The creation within the Group’s Management Committee of an “International Affairs and CSR department,” at the beginning of January 2018, is a clear sign of the importance the Group attaches to CSR in its strategy. The CSR department coordinates Social Responsibility at Group level and comprises two permanent staff. For the past five years they have been supported by the expertise of a CSR committee, made up of CSR correspondents from the various Business Units and representing different business lines. 4.1.2. Key challenges and materiality analysis In 2016, the Group carried out its materiality analysis in collaboration with an external third party. The objective was to refine the identification of CSR issues and to prioritize them in a continuous improvement logic following the ISO 26000 diagnoses initiated in 2012. This exercise provides a tool for dialogue with external stakeholders and feeds into strategic reflection on the CSR approach review. With regard to the evaluation of materiality criteria, the internal assessment of the importance of the listed issues stems from the consolidation of the assessments made via ISO 26000 diagnoses, supplemented by additional internal and external interviews to give a fairer representation of the Group’s activities. A weighting of the results according to the turnover of each Business Unit was taken into account. The importance to the external community was defined by evaluating three criteria that reflect the expectations of the major stakeholder typologies of Vilmorin & Cie, namely: investors, mainly by assessing the level of expectations of non- financial rating agencies, the market, through an assessment of the extent to which competitors take into account the various issues at stake, the expectations of customers and suppliers expressed in interviews conducted, and the analysis of questionnaires sent back by customers, consumers and civil society, through the evaluation of the media coverage of the various issues in the mainstream and economic press, French and international. The results provide reading keys and help to distinguish the main elements for the Company’s current and future CSR success, and the less important elements. They are regularly reassessed, in a continuous improvement approach, in order to take into account the changing context and stakeholder expectations. 4.1. The approach 4.1. The approach