ESDW 2020: everyone a player in preserving biodiversity

Enabling customers and employees to be real players in the preservation of biodiversity: this is the other line of action chosen by certain Groupe BPCE companies.

Some examples?  Eager to meet the expectations of customers wanting to act in an ethical and responsible manner, Crédit Coopératif has, over the past twenty years, been offering its Agir range, a line of socially-committed products and solutions: passbook savings accounts, bank cards, and solidarity-based mutual funds.

France Nature Environnement (www.fne.asso.fr), the benchmark French federation of associations working for the protection of nature and the environment, is one of the fifty or so associations benefiting from these products. Donations worth a total of 234,000 euros were made to the association in 2019 to support its actions in favor of the ‘environmental cause’ in the broadest sense: combating health and environmental hazards, promoting local circuits and, of course, biodiversity.

Combining commitment with pragmatism

Allowing customers to determine their own commitment is also a choice favored by the Caisse d’Epargne Hauts de France. At the beginning of 2019, the savings bank launched an operation in partnership with the Reforest’Action association, whose primary mission is to heighten awareness in the general public about the need to preserve forests and to take action in this area.

The bank set out to encourage customers to receive their monthly bank statements in a digital format and to offer them, in exchange, the possibility of planting a tree.

And the operation proved to be a great success! Out of the 130,000 customers targeted in the campaign, 78,000 signed up to the initiative. In March 2019, some 50 customers, directors and employees of the Caisse d’Epargne Hauts de France took part in the creation of a hedgerow made up of 900 trees and shrubs of various species in Marcq-en-Ostrevent in the north of France. A total of nearly 50,000 trees have been financed in this way, representing an outstanding regional success story in favor of the environment.

Mobilization shared by Groupe BPCE employees

Since 2013, Natixis has enabled its employees to take a Congé Solidaire® (Solidarity Leave) with the NGO Planète Urgence. A large number of volunteers sign up for missions designed to raise awareness of environmental issues and to protect biodiversity.

 Natixis covers the cost of preparing the mission, traveling expenses, and logistics. In 2019, 22 missions were carried out, notably to protect biodiversity but also to provide socio-educational support for young people and to strengthen the skills of adults. More than 150 missions have been carried out since the beginning and a real commitment on the part of Group employees has been observed.