Putting the environment at the heart of economic recovery

At the initiative of Jean-Laurent Bonnafé, Chief Executive Officer of BNP Paribas and Chairman of EpE (the ‘French Association of Companies for the Environment’), a joint opinion piece signed by more than ninety French and international business leaders was published in the newspaper Le Monde on May 5, 2020. Among the signatories were Laurent Mignon, Chairman of the Management Board of Groupe BPCE, and François Riahi, Chief Executive Officer of Natixis. The article calls for a collective drive to place the environment at the very heart of economic recovery.

“We stand by our collective ecological transition ambitions and reaffirm the commitments we have made over the years, since continuing our efforts is the key to their success. For this to happen, it will be essential to channel a large proportion of the financial resources earmarked for economic recovery into the areas already identified as supporting ecological transition, with an even greater emphasis on social justice.”

To read the entire opinion piece, click here. 

For further details about EpE:

Entreprises pour l’Environnement (EpE), created in 1992, is a platform gathering together some 40 large French and international companies active in all sectors of the economy that want to integrate the environment more effectively into their corporate strategies and day-to-day management. We share the same vision of the environment as a source of progress and opportunities. We are convinced that, just as no player can develop sustainably in a degraded environment, taking effective account of environmental issues is a source of lasting value for the companies that we are. EpE provides its members with a forum for debates within the business world itself, as well as with various stakeholders such as NGOs, governments, elected representatives, and the scientific and academic communities.