What types of partnership for sustainable development?
Entrepreneurs du Monde organised a business meeting about its actions concerning sustainable development. The meeting’s aim was to give executives and CEOs an opportunity to discuss their successful experiences, their needs, their issues and strategies for partnerships with NGOs.
The lively discussion between representatives of Ailancy, Comgest, Make Sense, the E.CF Group, Ecofi, Egis, Engie, L’Oréal, Rexel and Total led to deliberation on a wide variety of partnership types and highlighted their strong impact on all the stakeholders.
L’Oréal: a partnership to reduce carbon emissions
Jean-P
ierre Coutauchaud, Corporate Purchasing Department Director at L’Oréal, explained the group’s commitment to reducing carbon emissions:
“L’Oréal aims to be well balanced in terms of carbon emissions by 2020. We have already reduced emissions from our factories and transportation by 67%, and our goal is to eradicate them by 2020. Furthermore, we want to compensate for what we cannot reduce. In particular, this is the case with our purchases of raw materials, notably shea in Burkina Faso. We decided, therefore, to respond to the group’s carbon balance goals and, at the same time, to reduce emissions of particles which weaken women’s health. In this context, we have built a partnership with Entrepreneurs du Monde to make improved cooking stoves accessible to shea producers. These stoves consume less wood, produce less CO2 and reduce women’s exposure to toxic fumes. Thanks to the NGO’s technical expertise and presence in the field, the results are extremely positive: we aim to distribute 7,500 improved stoves in the next three years and we have already reached 2,000”.
It is through Nafa Naana, an Entrepreneurs du Monde access to energy programme in Burkina Faso, that the partnership was set up.
Reaching the most isolated populations
The partnership between businesses and NGOs is also “a way of developing a last mile distribution” of basic goods, benefitting isolated populations, as Bénédicte d’HEROUVILLE testified. She is the Social Business & Sustainable Development officer at TOTAL, a partner supporting Entrepreneurs du Monde in promoting innovative access to solar kits in the Philippines through a pay-as-you-go system.
Thomas Thivillon, Head of the Energy division at Entrepreneurs du Monde, confirmed that “a partnership between businesses and NGOs is often a laboratory where societal innovation is an outcome.”
Involve your co-workers
This is also a strong element of the associates’ motivation, as Amandine Autret, Quality, Security and Sustainable Development officer at E.CF, confirmed: “Our partnership with Entrepreneurs du Monde creates an internal dynamic and facilitates discussions on inter-services themes”.
And what about your company? Our team is at your disposal to forge a meaningful partnership with you, appropriate to your business sector and issues, responding to your needs and having a strong social impact!
Contact Leslie Gomez
Partnerships mission manager
04 37 24 71 67