Universal Registration Document 2020

3.5.1.2 Stakeholder panels

For over 20 years, the EDF group has relied on different external stakeholder councils, at corporate, country and subsidiary level. Several panels of experts from civil society provide Group managers with their view on the major topics of interest to EDF. This isa powerful tool for listening and understanding the environment to which EDF, a pioneer in this field, attaches great importance. The recommendations of these Councils are a source for the Group’s focuses for consideration.

For example, the EDF group’s Sustainable Development Council, which reports to theExecutive Director for Innovation, Corporate Responsibility and Strategy, produced the “stakeholders” focus of the Group’s dual materiality matrix, which was revised in2020. The identification, selection and prioritisation of non-financial issues from the stakeholders’ point of view were directly integrated into the materiality matrix presented in the introduction to this chapter 3. After eight years of operation, this Council, comprising fourteen external personalities representative of the EDF group’s major environmental, social and societal issues, has been replaced by the StakeholderCouncil, whose first working session on 27 January was devoted to the Group’s raison d’être and its link with the CAP 2030 strategy for an integrated CSR policy. The subjects considered by this multidisciplinary, joint and voluntary Council include solutions based on the nature of the duty of care.

In a similar manner, the recommendations of the stakeholder panels coordinated by EDF are taken into account:

• the EDF Scientific Council, chaired by Sébastien Candel, Chairman of the Academy of Sciences, met three times in 2020 to discuss the international R&D activities, biodiversity and EDF’s R&D orientations. The session devoted to EDF’s international R&D led to a recommendation by the Council to more frequently head large-budget collaborative projects with a view to increasing the share of grants. This recommendation was followed by the implementation of a specific “Green Deal” project, comprising the Brussels R&D team, and reinforced by several researchers of international renown, which focuses on preparing calls for tenders for the “Horizon Europe⁽¹⁾ ” programme;
• Edison’s new Stakeholder Advisory Board (SAB) worked on the materiality analysis of high-stake non-financial issues. Eight priority topics emerged, which were validated by the Board of Directors and integrated into the subsidiary’s management.

Along similar lines, Edison set up an intergenerational listening and exchange network bringing together older members of staff and young people from the Millennial and Z generations. The workshops held in 2020 generated proposals about Edison’s contribution to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

In a similar manner, in December, Nam Theun 2 worked with 200 young people inLaos to encourage the adoption of these Goals, with the aim of identifying concrete projects that can be transposed to local communities;

• in 2017, EDF and Usbek & Rica magazine created an EDF Council of FutureGenerations, with the aim of innovating in terms of dialogue with civil society to tackle the sensitive issues at the heart of the energy transition and business transformations. Due to the health crisis, only one session was held in 2020, which focused on working towards inclusive mobility compatible with the climate emergency and seeking concrete solutions to collectively advance UN SustainableDevelopment Goals (SDGs) 11 (ensure that cities and human settlements are inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable) and 13 (take urgent action to address climate change and its impacts);
• in addition, Enedis’ Stakeholder Council met three times to discuss the nature of Enedis’ external commitments, the management of the Covid crisis, the new industrial and human project and the outlook to 2050. The minutes of the conclusions of each Council meeting are shared with the members of Enedis’ Executive Committee. The three prospective scenarios to 2050 currently understudy were selected on the basis of the Council’s recommendations.

3.5.2 Mastering the issues

3.5.2.1 CSR commitments

Following a broad internal and external consultation, the review of the Corporate Responsibility Objectives in 2020 led the Group to increase the transparency of the CSR structure by focusing it on four key issues derived from its raison d’être:

• carbon neutrality and the climate;
• preserving the planet’s resources;
• well-being and solidarity;
• responsible development.

These four key issues are further broken down into sixteen commitments (four per key issue), which are linked to the Group’s materiality matrix⁽²⁾ and which cover all major issues of the Group’s CSR policy. They are in line with the previous Corporate Responsibility Objectives (CROs)⁽³⁾, which they extend, supplement and clarify. For example, they make more explicit EDF’s commitment to human rights, relations with local areas and digital development.

These four key issues break down into 16 EDF group CSR commitments: