GROUP ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY

Société Générale Group is fully aware of its responsibilities and constantly strives to protect the environment.

Group environmental policy **

Objectives:
  • Improve the integration of environmental criteria in all Group project decisions
  • Coordinate environmental measures via the Group's flagship project to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent climate change
Priority for 2009:
  • Continue to develop and implement the Group's environmental policy
The environment is a major priority for today's society. An economic system that is based on the overexploitation of natural resources and the limitless discharge of pollutants cannot be sustained. Warning signs are everywhere, the most serious of which is the threat of major climate change. Like any community, Société Générale also impacts the environment through its various activities.
Société Générale Group is fully aware of its responsibilities and constantly strives to protect the environment by integrating environmental criteria in its financing and investment businesses, and promoting the preservation of our ecological heritage.
The Group is also committed to adapting its internal activities and operations through an environmental policy that is based on three core priorities:
  • To reduce and minimise the direct impact of the Group's activities on the environment
  • To optimise and streamline the use of natural and energy resources
  • To constantly monitor customer and staff satisfaction
Like any services company, Société Générale also plays a part in the increase in greenhouse gas emissions as a result of its energy consumption, business trips, the daily commute of its staff and the waste it generates, particularly in terms of paper. In 2008, the Group consumed close to 850 GWh in electricity and heating, 1.5 million m3 of drinking water, 7,600 tons of paper and employee travel covered close to 470 million km.
All told, Société Générale's CO2 emissions for 2008 represented at 294,372 tons* (i.e. 2.24 tons of CO2 per person).
Preventing climate change and the carbon neutrality project approved by the Group's Executive Committee in 2007 form the core of the Group's environmental policy.
At the same time, the policy also aims to improve:
  • the integration of the environment in the Group's real estate management via the definition of governing principles that are to be systematically applied in order to establish a common framework for construction and renovation projects;
  • the increased implementation of new technologies that have less of an impact on the environment and that will enhance the environmental performance of the Group's different businesses and activities;
  • the strict management of consumables, notably paper, by imposing exacting supplier standards and reduced paper consumption;
  • responsible "travel" via the implementation of alternative solutions and via heightened employee awareness.
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* Verified by Ernst & Young (see Statutory Auditors' Report )
**As per our commitment under the Global Compact
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