The Founding Social Project of GDF SUEZ

GDF SUEZ profiles itself as a company of solidarity, citizenship, innovation in training and as a company which respects the many local contexts it operates in. The global giant with French / Belgian roots provides essential day-to-day services and places social responsibility at the core of its public service mission. Consequently, GDF SUEZ’s approach to Diversity is embedded in its international Founding Social Project, which covers both that national French and the global levels. It includes the key dimensions gender (male/female equality), disability, and age (people over 55 years of age, employment of young people, and inter-generational initiatives).

The objective in the area of gender equality is to achieve, by 2015, that one out of three executives be female, 35% of high potentials, 25% of managers, and 30% of new recruits (worldwide coverage). In order to reach these objectives, GDF SUEZ is, among other activities, training managers, HR teams and social partners, and constructing a common culture based on the Group’s equality policies. The company aims at guaranteeing the consistency of messages at the Corporate level (e.g. through New Management Responsibilities) and at developing its co-operation with FACE (Foundation for Actions Countering Exclusion) in order to organise the decentralised implementation of integrating equality processes into the management system, both regionally and at the European level. Communication tools help to raise awareness for equality practices throughout the Group as a whole. The commitment made by GDF SUEZ regarding disabled people fits fully within their policy promoting of equal opportunities for all groups in order to strengthen diversity. The Group not only facilitates access to employment but also puts an emphasis on developing the professional career paths of disabled employees. The company improves the monitoring of employment through a roadmap of the age pyramid of workers with a disability and includes the employment of people with a disability in managers’ objectives. Again, communication and events help creating awareness, as well as the work of the Group Disability Network.

Regarding the employment of young people, the goals for France, Germany and Belgium are to increase the numbers of work-based learning contracts (the so-called ‘sandwich-training’), and for the rest of Europe to increase the number of mentors. To achieve this goal, an emphasis is being put on outlining existing forms of exclusion and their causes. Partnerships with grass-root projects from the field, e. g. FACE (sourcing, training, recruitment, coaching, mentoring, etc.), and the implementation of innovative initiatives such as ‘Un But pour l’Emploi’ (‘A goal for employment’) in France ensure the outreach of GDF SUEZ’s strategy.

With the Founding Social Project, a truly global company of remarkable scope (218,900 employees) has managed to combine an international policy with a consistent global framework and local relevance. While the CSR context of the approach is less common in the field, the formalised reporting, localisation of programmes and integration in business reviews and managerial bodies is in line with leading global D&I practices. GDF SUEZ delivers on its international slogan: By people for people.