Corporate Social Responsibility
Our commitments
Coface has been actively pursuing action in all areas of Corporate Social Responsibility for a number of years.
By signing up in 2003 to the principles of the United Nation’s Global Compact, we committed to supporting, in our own sphere of influence, the ten principles related to safeguarding the environment and ensuring sustainable development. These commitments touch on all of our dealings with the business community in general, and structure the Group’s human resources policy.
Since Coface’s entry onto the Paris stock exchange in 2014, in order to improve their efficiency and elaborate new plans, we centralize CSR actions taken by our 67 entities worldwide.
ESG reporting scope on financial year 2016 covers France, Germany and Italy. Reporting now covers 43% of the Group’s employee base and 48.4% of turnover. This scope will be extended each year, with the aim of gradually integrating all of the countries in which the Group is present.
Socially responsible investment :
Coface Group pursue its ESG undertakings through the implementation of its responsible investment policy. Consult our report prepared in compliance with decree no. 2015-1850 of 29 December 2015 in application of Article 173 of the French law on energy transition for green growth no. 2015 – 992 of 17 August 2015.
Our commitments
PROMOTING DIVERSITY
Multicultural and truly international in outlook, the Group counts 75 different employee nationalities, with 223 employees working outside their country of origin. This diversity is a key asset for Coface, reflecting our ambition to be as close as possible to our customers and to the business community at large.
MEN-WOMEN
54% of our global workforce are women, with 56% women in France, 52% in Germany and 49% in Intaly.
Women occupy 42% of leadership roles in France, 15% of equivalent roles in Germany and 34% in Italy. They also represent almost a third of the members of the Group Management and Executive Committees respectively.
In 2015, Coface was ranked 18 out of 120 companies for representation of women (SBF 120 index survey).
WORK CONTRACTS WITHOUT FIXED DURATION
France : 99.2%
Germany : 99.7%
Italy : 99.0%
TRAINING
Keeping our employees up-to-date with changing trends and practice in professions linked to credit insurance (risk underwriting, corporate information, debt recovery, litigation, etc.) is a key to being able to offer companies a service that meets their needs.
Coface’s sales training programme for almost 1,200 employees received two silver trophies:
Brandon Hall Group and Actions Co
Our priorities in 2017 :
- Strengthening our sales expertise
- Improvement of digital communication with our Clients
- Renewal of Coface employees' training to Group compliance policies
FIGHTING DISCRIMINATION
In the years to come, we intend to strengthen our diversity policy, by, for example, facilitating employment of people suffering from a handicap.
45 of our employees in France have disabilities
A SERVICE COMPANY, COFACE’S ACTIVITY HAS A LIMITED IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENT
In this area, our policy consists above all of ensuring our choice of real estate minimises our environmental impact, by ensuring reduced greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption.
More generally, we encourage employees to adopt behaviour consistent with the Group’s commitments in this domain.
We seek to ensure waste is sorted and recycled, including parts of obsolete IT equipment.
In order to reduce our environmental footprint, in particular in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, we are taking action to limit paper consumption, thanks notably to digitization of exchanges between Coface and our clients, and are progressively introducing policies across all our entities to manage employee business travel.
A PROFESSION THAT HELPS BUSINESSES GROW
By offering companies secure commercial transactions, credit insurance contributes to encouraging trade and economic activity. As a leading credit insurance provider, we focus on offering our clients products that are adapted to their needs and that help their businesses grow. We have made innovation one of our key development axes, as illustrated by the significant number of new Coface products marketed in recent years.
Coface’s Code of Business Ethics distributed to all employees to guide them on the best way to avoid conflicts of interest.
In 2004, we launched Coface Trade Aid, a non-profit organisation designed to promote charitable action aligned with our values. Actions are proposed by employees, whether as individual initiatives or with charitable organisations.
CODE OF CONDUCT
Integrity is the foundation on which Coface’s reputation and the development of lasting relationships with our customers are based.
Our 'code of conduct' sets out the principles we should apply on a daily basis in order to respect our values: client focus, expertise, collaboration, courage & accountability. It sets out our commitments and serves as a reference for our employees.
Coface has adopted a zero tolerance policy on corruption in all its forms. Our commitments are gathered in our "anti-bribery code".