CARREFOUR - 2014 annual financial report

24 2014 Registration Document

Social responsibility

CSR at Carrefour

2.1.3.3

CSR challenges:

a source of innovation

Carrefour believes that innovation is a powerful driver of progress in

CSR. The Group launches pilot initiatives every year in all fields (energy,

waste, packaging, and supplier relations) and is looking for new solutions.

The waste reduction plan launched in 2013 is a good example: the

programme is restrictive, requiring determination and innovation from

everyone within its job.

In many areas, the Carrefour group’s culture of pragmatic innovation makes

it a player in transforming the retail sector. When stores in Poland, for

example, were equipped with CO

-cooled refrigeration systems in 2014,

the Carrefour teams needed to train the service providers responsible

for equipment maintenance and upkeep. Carrefour was thus the driving

force behind a new industry that was gradually created, allowing all

retailers in Poland to adopt the innovation, a highly effective weapon in

the fight against climate change.

Another example is that the Carrefour group is the only general retailer

among the companies invited by the European Commission to submit

a project as part of its effort to define an Organisation Environmental

Footprint (OEF). The Group is a member of the technical secretariat

responsible for defining the methods (2014), testing them (2015), and

ultimately disseminating them (2016). The aim of the OEF is to provide

a common method for calculating a multi-criteria environmental footprint

(more comprehensive than a carbon footprint) for all organisations.

2015: YEAR OF THE CLIMATE

Carrefour’s ambition is to play a positive role in climate

negotiations and encourage governments to make the

COP21, the big international conference in Paris early

December 2015, an ambitious agreement.

The Group sees climate issues as a challenge for everyone,

so it hopes to involve its employees as well as its partners

through three initiatives:

■

helping partners, customers, and suppliers to make

their own positive contribution;

■

presenting the solutions in Carrefour stores in various

countries to fight climate change: “natural” refrigeration,

efforts to combat deforestation, and energy production

using bio waste;

■

getting the retailers and suppliers involved in supporting

the COP21 through the consumer goods forum and the

Solutions COP21 club.

The Group’s CO

emissions have fallen as a direct result of

its waste reduction and biodiversity action programmes.

2.1.3.4

Business ethics

The Carrefour group conducts its activities ethically and has therefore

developed a control framework and structures adapted to its business

and corporate culture.

Carrefour sent in 2013 a new version of the Group’s rules to country

directors as a framework for internal audits, applicable to all entities. The

priority is on business ethics and legal compliance. It entails working with

both Carrefour’s teams and suppliers. The Carrefour group’s actions are

based on major universal principles and on tools specific to Carrefour.

◗

Practices guided by major fundamental principles

The Carrefour group operates within a framework that respects human

rights and adopts and promotes fundamental international principles,

including in particular:

■

the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;

■

the main Conventions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO)

with regard to fundamental rights;

■

the guiding principles of the OECD;

■

the principles of the Global Compact, of which the Group has been

a member since 2001.

◗

The Code of Professional Conduct:

a frame of reference for employees

The Carrefour Code of Professional Conduct is a common frame

of reference setting out the Group’s values and commitments in ten

principles, applicable to all employees.

A 20-minute e-learning course has been developed and is available in

nine languages (French, English, Brazilian Portuguese, Traditional Chinese,

Spanish, Flemish, Italian, Polish and Romanian) to help employees

understand and assimilate the ten principles. It has been rolled out to

every country, and in particular to all of the employees and directors in

six countries (Brazil, China, Spain, Poland, Romania and Taiwan).

◗

Ethics Committees

Since 2010, Carrefour has had a Group Ethics Committee, chaired by

the Group General Secretary, and Country Ethics Committees in each

country, whose role is to oversee and assess the application of the

principles set out in the Carrefour Code of Professional Conduct. The

Country Ethics Committees rely on professional misconduct/malpractice

alert systems set up in accordance with local regulations.

These systems operate to inform the Country Ethics Committee of any

behaviour or situation that runs counter to Carrefour’s ethical principles.

◗

Supplier Charter: a frame of reference

for Carrefour’s suppliers

The Group’s Supplier Charter is an integral part of Carrefour’s business

contracts with suppliers of its own-brand products to ensure that ethics

are taken into account in day-to-day business practice. This charter

includes Carrefour social and ethical requirements. The Group has

developed a method of inspection

via

social audits to ensure it is applied

in practice (pages 52 and 53).