10 CSR news of the week - Week of May 20 to 24

Welcome to the 10 CSR news items of the week!

Microsoft faces rising emissions despite its climate targets, and the ISSB is criticized for its focus on financial profitability.

Fast-deco" leads to an increase in furniture waste, while France's new childbirth leave scheme sparks debate. Arcep launches a digital eco-design reference framework, and the "permaeconomy" is proposed to better integrate biodiversity into companies.

Patronage and CSR are finding it hard to strike a balance, and the results of the Pacte law remain mixed. Paris triples parking rates for SUVs, and France announces a 5.8% drop in GHG emissions by 2023. 

Discover these ten highlights of the week.

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At Microsoft, AI and climate objectives are incompatible 

• While the tech giant's stated ambition is to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030, its emissions have risen by 30% over the past 4 years. This is due to major investments in the AI sector and the massification of its user base.

• Supplying data centers with energy, cooling them with water... Theintensive use of generative AI by more and more people is adding to Microsoft's carbon footprint. These are set to increase even further with GPT4, which is multimodal : in other words, it supports text, video, image and sound.

"For every 100 million people who use it, we come up with 2 million tonnes of CO2, or the size of a CAC40 company". Théo Alves da Costa, co-president of Data for good.

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ISSB prefers financial reason to the biosphere

In an article for Novethic, Alexandre Rambaud, a senior lecturer at AgroParisTech and a specialist in financial accounting, criticizes the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) for stubbornly maintaining its vision of simple materiality-based accounting. In his view, this tends to make human capital and biodiversity invisible in the context of corporate environmental responsibility. 

At the heart of his argument is the way in which the ISSB hijacks sustainability issues to serve the needs of financial profitability. As such, he writes: "nature is seen as important (material) only because of its financial consequences". 

Finally, he asserts that behind the stated aim of developing an extra-financial reporting standard lie market interests and resistance to a genuine paradigm shift .

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Fast-deco and the increase in furniture waste

A recent report from Zero Waste France looks at the phenomenon of "fast-déco", the decorative version of "fast-fashion". Its environmental cost is very high and rising: between 2014 and 2020, they identify that the number of furnishing wastes has doubled .

Sales of furniture and decorative objects rose by 88% between 2017 and 2020, "from 270 to 500 million units placed on the market", or 17 items per household per year. 

Organizations and associations are pointing the finger at the very low level of repair, recycling and reuse of fast-deco goods. They claim that 1.3 million tonnes of furniture waste will be collected by 2022. Finally, it should be noted that the French furniture industry has lost a quarter of its jobs over the last 15 years...

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Towards a cap on birth leave? 

President Macron has given details about the addition of a "birth leave" to the current parental leave. The aim is to make it shorter, but better paid. To date, there are 3 main criteria: 

• 3 months per parent (cumulative)
• Compensated at 50% of salary
• capped at €1,900

However, the consultation meetings revealed a number of criticisms. In particular, the cap of half salary would prove insufficient for some employees, "discouraging them from taking leave". 

The President announced that it would be available as early as the end of 2025, as it would be created from the next Social Security budget. 

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New digital eco-design standard

Arcep, the French regulatory authority for electronic communications, has published a reference framework for the eco-design of digital services, in collaboration with ADEME and Arcom. The aim is to provide a framework for reducing the sector's environmental impact. 

Aimed at professionals, this framework aims to support responsible design of digital services: web, app, video platforms, AI... These are all solutions that can be particularly emissive.

The standard is organized into 78 criteria, all of which include a practical implementation support component. The philosophy behind the standard is to cover the entire production chain: "from initial strategy to hosting, including the development of architecture and content".

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Permaeconomics" puts life back in the village

Emmanuel Delannoy is a specialist in the links between business and biodiversity. He points out that the 6th mass extinction is underway, and that human activities are the main cause, with "a species extinction rate 100 to 1000 times higher than the natural extinction rate".

According to him, the business economy is highly dependent on biodiversity: "it is estimated that the sectors directly dependent on biodiversity generate €275 billion in France". 

His proposal is therefore that of a "permaeconomy", which would enable the company to renew its approach to the living world by placing it at the heart of its concerns. This means maintaining a relationship with nature that neither constrains nor subjugates it, but rather allows it to "thrive and adapt". 

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Do CSR and philanthropy necessarily go hand in hand? 

The OpenLab is an initiative spearheaded by Admical, which aims to question the relationship between corporate philanthropy and CSR. Their observation is twofold: 

Corporate philanthropy is under-utilized by French companies (only 9%).

But since its purpose is to be disinterested and voluntary, it could run counter to the DNA of CSR. 

OpenLab therefore proposes a series of best practices to prevent "confusion or even greenwashing". One of the main principles of their report is that: "Corporate philanthropy cannot compensate for poor CSR performance". 

Finally, we learn, for example, that sponsorship should not be limited to the company's financial interests, nor should a hierarchy be established between sponsorship and CSR to ensure their harmonious cohabitation. 

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Loi Pacte and CSR: we take stock

5 years after the Pacte law and the introduction of new logics for business, what remains of its influence? Between mission-driven companies, the company's "raison d'être" and the integration of social and environmental issues, it carried the ambition of a major transformation of the French economy. 

According to Novethic, the results are mixed: "the great sustainable transformation of companies has not really taken place". Some specialists criticize the "theatrical" approach, which showcases the company's commitment without really questioning the means of transforming its processes in depth. 

In short, the raison d'être of CAC40 companies remains vague and imprecise, and the small number of companies with missions (1600) does not allow us to conclude that there is a widespread movement to take CSR issues into account under the impetus of this 2019 law. 

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Parking costs 3 times more for Parisian SUVs

The Paris City Council has voted a measure to discourage Parisians from driving SUVs: the tripling of parking charges for the heaviest vehicles. This is the result of a vote last February (5.68% turnout), in which the majority of voters expressed their desire for a special parking rate for the largest vehicles. 

In practice, this concerns vehicles weighing 1.6 tons or more (2 tons for electric vehicles), which will have to pay 225€ for a 6-hour parking period in the capital's central arrondissements (1st to 11th arrondissements). Currently, the charge for the same period is €75. 

This does not apply to cabs, professionals (healthcare, craftsmen and shopkeepers) or people with reduced mobility. 

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Government announces 5.8% reduction in GHG emissions

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal has announced that French greenhouse gas emissions will be 5.8% lower in 2023 than in 2022. To affirm this, he relied on an interim report by the Centre interprofessionnel technique d'études de la pollution atmosphérique (Citepa).

This political communication has a dual focus: the upcoming European elections, and France's commitment to a -50% reduction in emissions by 2030. 

However, NGOs and associations point out thatthis could only be a "cyclical drop" in emissions. In their view, they are linked to a milder winter and a slowdown in the French economy, rather than to a pronounced environmental policy. 

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Sources

Novethic "Artificial intelligence jeopardizes Microsoft's climate goals"

Youmatter "Combining corporate philanthropy and CSR: best practices" (in French)

RSE Magazine "Numérique: l'Arcep publie un référentiel pour des services plus écologiques" (in French)

Le Monde "Greenhouse gas emissions down 5.8% in France in 2023, announces Gabriel Attal"

Novethic "ISSB tackles human capital and biodiversity... but still not unsustainable financial interests"

Carenews "Furniture waste in France doubled between 2014 and 2020"

Reporterre "Heavy cars will pay 3 times more to park in Paris".

Youmatter "Biodiversity: why companies need to change their relationship with living things"

Novethic "Loi Pacte: 5 years on, few concrete advances for CSR"

Carenews "Consultations on birth leave launched".