As the overall market and consumer focus has shifted to questions of fairness, corporate social responsibility, and social development, Caisse d’Epargne (CE) decided to subject itself to being rated on these factors. Because it was a French company, CE decided to get itself evaluated by VIGEO, an ESG research, and data group. VIGEO’s results showed that CE’s weakest performance was related to the environment. CE earned a rating of 2 (cautious) on the environment. That was not entirely surprising since the company had, by its own admission, ‘woken up but had yet to take concrete action’ regarding environmental issues.

In three of the six criteria within the environmental domain rating scheme, CE rated at 1 (indifference) and in the other three, it rated at 2. The rating of 2 reflected strategic involvement in environmental issues, and the resultant indirect effects, such as on the environment and ecosystem. The lower rating, 1, reflected the direct impact of the company’s operations on the environment — waste management, and negative externalities associated with distribution and transportation. As the company elevated its focus on the environment, it recognized the need to put greater focus on the vendors that it worked with to assess their own ecological friendliness. This grand plan was hampered by the fact that vendor management was already expensive. For CE to achieve thorough scrutiny of its vendors, that would require it to pay VIGEO to assess those vendors. That cost was not feasible, and CE had to decide on a workable process to evaluate the four vendors that were currently in contention for its business.

1. What evidence is there of Standard environmentalism vs. Market environmentalism?

2. Which factors drive or accelerate the concern for environmental concerns within firms?

3. Is the call to have environmental impacts of vendors as a core part of the project approval process feasible in our politically divergent climate?