Corporate Social Responsibility in France

Developments in finance relating to CSR and, more broadly, to sustainable development (SRI funds, for example) have shown that this emerging finance is not entirely “alternative” in the original sense of the term, meaning another form of finance alongside the financial markets. A genuinely climate-friendly or resilient finance is emerging and its causes are well known: the burgeoning worldwide population and rising levels of GHG (greenhouse gases) driven by the fossil-fuels industry, transport and cities. The Paris Agreement ( http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/fre/l09f.pdf ) signed on 12 December 2015 is an important milestone. Europe is an undisputed leader with the “Juncker Plan” of November 2014 aiming to re-launch investment in Europe and unblock public and private investments. It is in line with the need for decarbonisation already set out in the European Parliament resolution of 5 February 2014 “on a 2030 framework for climate and energy policies” (2013/2135 (INI)) ( http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P7-TA-2014-0094+0+DOC+XML+V0//FR ) drawing on the Commission Green Paper entitled “A 2030 framework for climate and energy policies” (COM (2013). However, this climate finance brings specific requirements, despite considerable private-sector efforts, such as the Green Bond Principles or the Carbon Tracker Initiative (CTI): a need for transparency, to combat greenwashing and to establish a genuine market for Green Bonds. In France, in 2008 the Paris Marketplace launched a major initiative on sustainable finance with a Responsible Investment Charter which was supplemented in 2012 by 10 proposals for Europe on SRI and CSR. Then the TEEC label (Transition Energétique et Ecologique pour le Climat—Energy and Ecological Transition for the Climate) launched at the end of 2015 aims to guarantee the transparency and quality of the environmental features of such financial products via an independent external audit. Yet, Article 173 of the French LTECV Act on the Energy Transition for Green Growth is an example to be followed (17th August 2015).