Dialogue approach

Vision & Issues

Specific issues

Approach and Performance

Dialogue approach

Vivendi conducts an ongoing dialogue with its various stakeholders while taking every opportunity for exchange with new partners. This stance of openness stimulates discussion of ideas and encourages innovation.

Vivendi’s impact

Through its business activities, Vivendi has a human, intellectual and cultural impact on society. By choosing to promote the diversity of artistic expressions and intercultural dialogue at a worldwide level, Vivendi stimulates creativity, strengthens social cohesion, and contributes to economic growth.
Since 2008, Vivendi has included indicators related to its specific issues in its Report. These indicators are aimed at better measuring progress in knowledge, well-being, or social ties encouraged by the different business units’ offerings of content and services. The purpose of this is to contribute to the effort being made at the European and international levels to better evaluate the role played by culture and the information and communication technologies (ICTs) in an innovation and knowledge society. Vivendi was invited by the United Nations to present its sustainable development policy at the Alliance of Civilizations Forum held in Rio, in Brazil, in May 2010. Following the Forum, Vivendi and the Alliance of Civilizations formed a working group whose specificity is to bring together representatives of international institutions (UNESCO, OECD, EU Commission, ALECSO, etc.) and of the private sector (Global Reporting Initiative, Reed Elsevier, Bertelsmann, etc.). The Group has set itself two principal goals: promoting the role of culture and intercultural dialogue in the sustainable development agenda and endeavoring to define a few key indicators at the macro- and micro-economic levels. In the framework of the follow-up to the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Report, Vivendi proposed a contribution to increase the integration of culture into the measure of well-being and economic and social progress.
Vivendi was also invited by the EU Commission, at the Safer Internet Forum in Luxembourg in October 2010, to present its commitment to empowering young people and their parents in this constantly changing digital universe.

Sharing experiences with civil society

In this quest for innovation accelerated by the digital revolution, it is important to nourish regular exchanges with civil society’s various active participants so as to have access to the richest and most diverse range of points of view possible. Jean-Bernard Lévy, Vivendi’s Chief Executive Officer, regularly brings together actors from civil society. The NGO Poverty Action Lab Europe was invited to share its experience about the relation between ICTs and the fight against poverty.
Vivendi, a partner of the EU Commission’s Safer Internet program, supports Pan-EU Youth, an initiative led by European Schoolnet and the Insafe network. This online platform provides young Europeans with a space where they can discuss the impact of the new media on their daily lives. Three consultations are held on the following themes: Young people in the media, Digital lives, and e-skills.
Vivendi took part in the Culture and University Commission put in place by Valérie Pécresse, France’s Minister of Higher Education and Research, to create a synergy between university and culture. Vivendi contributed to writing proposals that have been presented to the presidents of universities and Grandes Écoles in France. As a founding partner of the Avignon Forum, which brings together major players in the economy, culture, media and public institutions, Vivendi contributed to the study aimed at exploring the relation between culture, economic performance, social cohesion, and territorial development.

Exchange with the financial and extrafinancial communities

The Investor Relations Department and the Sustainable Development Department organize meetings with members of the financial community in order to present the Group’s sustainable development policy during dedicated roadshows.
These meetings are highly constructive. Vivendi’s three specific issues are discussed in depth, and other issues are raised, such as the procedure for monitoring the inclusion of sustainable development criteria in the variable remuneration of the Group’s senior executives, Vivendi’s contribution to human development in the emerging countries, and in particular in Africa, respect for human rights on the part of suppliers and subcontractors, and the programs put in place by the Group to promote women’s representation in decision-making bodies.
Targeting SRI (Socially Responsible Investment) analysts in particular, this communication is increasingly shared by financial analysts, who integrate the table of opportunities and risks brought into focus by the sustainable development process into their analytic approach (see Philippe Capron’s point of view).
Vivendi is also continuing its exchanges with extrafinancial rating agencies. This contributes to better understanding its sectoral positioning and more efficiently analyzing the progress to be made.

The sectoral network

Vivendi has moved forward in the necessary but delicate task of compiling indicators related to its specific issuesin the light of the Group’s specific footprint.
Vivendi, as a founding member of the Media sectoral working group implemented by the Global Reporting Initiative(GRI), contributes actively to working out sectoral indicators applicable in 2012. GRI’s mission is to define guidelines to help organizations account for their economic, social and environmental performance. These guidelines meet the requirements of the ten principles of the United Nations Global Compact and are broken down by business sector. The GRI Media Sector Supplement working group includes some twenty members (representing companies and NGOs).

Raising employee awareness

séminaire dd 2010 Vivendi’s first sustainable development Seminar in Paris brought together 70 participants and speakers representative of civil society and the Group’s business units around the world. The Seminar was an occasion for Vivendi’s senior executives to recall the main axes of the Group’s sustainable development policy, then to listen to stakeholders – investors, rating agencies, experts, academicians, representatives of NGOs – who shared their analyses and expressed their expectations. The business units also intervened, illustrating the integration of the sustainable development issues in their particular business areas.
The sessions of the Sustainable Development Committee regularly bring in employees of Corporate Headquarters and of the business units to exchange views and discuss several topics, including the role and actions of the CHSCTs (Health, Safety, and Working Conditions Committees) in the Group, a presentation of the French Grenelle laws that reinforce the companies’ requirements for extrafinancial reporting, relations with suppliers, and protection of personal data. The Diversity Skills Network also met to discuss policy regarding the employment of seniors.