The complementary nature of these business lines, covering the entire decarbonised energy value chain, illustrates the relevance of EDF group’s business model.
Enshrined in CAP 2030, EDF’s strategy is rooted in this business model, focusing on economic and environmental performance and drawing on business lines geared to energy transition, R&D,(2) and innovation. It is fuelled by strong aspirations as regards human resources and the commitment of employees, called upon to maintain operational performance as they continue to adjust activities, skills, and working methods
Health and safety, digital technology and new work practices, responsibility and simplification, skills and the recognition model are the five major levers of the Group’s transformation.
In order to be able to face new challenges and meet the new expectations of the customers, employees and all the stakeholders, the Group adapts its managerial practices by empowering the teams, streamlining its organisations and
modus operandi, as illustrated by a number of concrete examples since 2016 (introduction of fixed numbers of working days for managers, boosting career paths and promoting internal mobility and promotional training, streamlining and simplification of Group policies, etc.) and other more recent examples, such as the digital signature of contracts, first used for public procurement and secondly spread out to many other uses, and the simplification of financial and non-financial reporting.
In 2018, EDF also signed a new global agreement on Corporate Social Responsibility (“CSR agreement”) which includes improvements in favour of diversity and to the benefit of Group employees. In 2019, a new management-labour dialogue approach was adopted, simplified and set up, in accordance with new legal requirements (see section 3.5.2.4 “Management-labour dialogue”). Highlights of 2020 in this respect include the Group’s review of its support for internal mobility and the rollout of new aspirations for leadership (see section 3.3.3.6 “Skills development”) in support of managerial transformation.
The transformation process is based in particular on mechanisms for coordinating networks of stakeholders “Let’s Talk Energy”, a collective intelligence initiative created in the first half of 2018 to harness the intelligence of EDF employees towards the construction of the Group’s medium and long-term scenarios (see section 3.4.1.1 “Commitment to dialogue and consultation process around our projects”).
Since several years, the EDF group has placed the focus of digital transformation and innovation at the strategic level and has carried out an in-depth review of its internal organisation and training. The digital transformation involves employees and internal modus operandi, customer relations and the management and design of industrial assets.
Amongst other initiatives, 2019 saw the creation of an in-house academy devoted to new digital jobs; in 2020, the usage centre facilitated the rollout of digital resources and practices to enhance collaboration across the Company and facilitate working from home, which saw massive uptake due to the health crisis.
The Group engages with technology innovations through multi-business line teams tasked with cross-functional subjects such as Artificial Intelligence, block chain, the Internet of Things (IoT), and 5G telephony.
In the field of data, the Group has adopted in 2018 a data management policy and set up a “data analytics” plant for nuclear, thermal and renewable electricity generation, with the pooling of expertise. In 2019, this plant expanded its scope.
A second plant came into being for tertiary sector data (real estate, purchasing, etc.). In 2020, the Group adopted an AI Ambition to speed up its progress in this field.
On the occasion of its innovation showcase event “Electric Days” (held online due to the pandemic), EDF also unveiled an open data platform.
EDF’s commitment was also embodied by the signature of a Responsible Digital charter created by Institut du Numérique Responsable (the French Institute for Responsible Digital Technology).
EDF group is also a founder member of Gaia-X(3), an initiative to promote the emergence of a European trusted cloud.
Performance improvement has always been a priority for the EDF group. The current economic and financial context further increases the urge for such improvement.
The Group is strengthening control of its costs to bring them into line with its environment.
The approach is adjusted depending on the scopes involved (support divisions, operating entities, etc.) and have already produced results in terms of reduction of operating expenses, optimisation of the working capital requirement and improved management (cash-based management, project management team, cyber-security management), with the aim of enhancing the competitiveness of support activities and giving businesses performance levers.
In the nuclear sector, 2020 was marked by the roll out of the “excell” plan, which seeks to enhance the industrial quality, expertise and governance of major nuclear projects (see section 1.4.1.1.1 “The excell plan”).
Furthermore, seeking to learn as many lessons as possible from the Covid-19 crisis, experimentation was also launched in the second half of the year (see section 3.3.1.3.4 “Wellbeing, organisation, and working time”) to bed in the new managerial approaches and working practices put into place during the lockdown period.
Pursuant to the CAP 2030 strategy, and in line with the guidelines adopted by the French authorities for the PPE, EDF group is mobilised to meet all aspects of the challenges of energy transition, in all territories in which it operates.
This ambition requires an overall reform of the conditions for obtaining a fair return on nuclear assets. In this context, the French government launched a consultation on adopting a new regulatory framework to replace the ARENH (see section 2.2.1“Market regulation, political and legal risks - 1B Evolution of the regulatory framework”) and has requested the Group’s Executive Management to reflect on anew organisation in connection with this reform.
This possible change in the Group’s organisation, which is envisaged only if the regulatory framework reform projects are carried out, could lead in particular to a spin-off of the downstream and services activities, grouped together in a structure (called “VERT”). VERT would also cover the Group’s renewables and distribution business, in particular by holding securities in EDF Renewables and Enedis. The parent company (known as “BLEU”) is aiming to retain ownership and control of the majority of VERT’s share capital; the rest would be put to public offering. The French State would own a majority stake in BLEU, which would cover all nuclear and thermal capacities. The organisation of EDF’s hydropower business is also being reviewed at present.
To date, the reorganisation project and the accompanying regulatory framework (known as the “HERCULE” project) are still being discussed by the French State and the European Commission. The outcome of these discussions cannot be predicted at this stage. In any event, the Group will ensure that implementation of the HERCULE project would preserve the integrated nature of EDF group and be accompanied by governance to secure this integrated arrangement.
(1) See the press release dated 15 October 2020 “EDF presents a first report on its excell plan for excellence in the nuclear industry”.
(2) With 2,663 employees worldwide, over 300 academic and industrial partnerships across the globe, in particular with EDF R&D, and 716 patented innovations at the end of2020, EDF group’s R&D is entirely devoted to the challenges of energy transition.
(3) GAIA-X – European Association for Data and Cloud.
