The Group engages in a societal approach based on identifying stakeholders (with special attention paid to indigenous communities), the principles of “Avoid, Mitigate, Offset”, and seeking to optimise the positive impacts and mitigate the negative impacts of its activities. Regarding projects exceeding €50 million, the process is based on the Equator Principles (1).
The impacts of each project are assessed on the basis of reasonable environmental and social due diligence. E&S impact studies encompass human rights aspects and stakeholder identification. Dialogue and consultation begin as early as possible, based on context, with special attention being paid to groups that are typically marginalised. A public claims mechanism is set up at a very early stage of the project. Public reporting is provided.
Details of the Group doctrine with respect to dialogue, consultation, and stakeholder relations are to be found in a collection of practical guides (“Stakeholder dialogue”). These principles are key to successful dialogue. For example, the long-standing dialogue between the power plant being decommissioned in Brennilis (Finistère) and the region (whether in terms of informing locals, partnerships, relations with socio-economic stakeholders, or the future of the “Maison du lac” zone on the shores of Lac Saint-Michel) reached a key stage in early 2022 with the public enquiry into the application for the reactor to be fully decommissioned. This public enquiry, following which the enquiry committee issued an unreserved favourable opinion, is an important milestone on the road to the issuing of the decommissioning decree, which will signal the start of the final phase of the decommissioning process.
EDF has set up in France a Regional Action and Territories Department (Direction des territoires et de l’action régionale) or DTAR to organise more specific dialogue and stakeholder relations locally. In addition to its role in cross-cutting dialogue and internal coordination, DTAR engages in dialogue with the local stakeholders closest to Group projects and operational activities, and more generally, with all bodies and stakeholders concerned with the French government’s “Recovery Plan”.
EDF R&D has thirty years’ worth of cutting-edge expertise in the local acceptability of structures, and devotes part of its research work to this aspect. This expertise helps the Group and its business line project managers to understand issues of acceptability, particularly regarding environmental and societal aspects.
In addition to their many contributions in terms of guidance and proactive measures, these experts assist departments and project managers. For example, in 2022 they helped the EPR2 (DIPNN) permitting team with a major programme of studies in preparation for the public debates.
Identifying and understanding stakeholder circumstances and expectations, taking the related decisions, and implementing appropriate action plans requires professional upskilling for managers and all other stakeholders.
Since 2008, the EDF group has provided a training offering to develop stakeholder knowledge for employees, nurture understanding of issues, and improve the management of dialogue and consultation practices. Open to all EDF group departments and subsidiaries in France, it is directed more particularly at project managers, managers, communications officers, and the members of regional delegations, in liaison with stakeholders.
EDF intends to implement tools that promote listening, dialogue and understanding of its environment using a wide range of instruments, from opinion barometers to forums for listening to stakeholders and employees implemented in the form of ongoing surveys or organised in connection with institutionalised dialogues.
For the first time in 2021, Parlons énergies (“Let’s talk energy”) became outward- facing. 3,500 interviews with private individuals and 52 participatory workshops were organised across France, led by 700 employees trained in interview techniques and overseen by a Supervisory Committee made up of academics, company leaders, and think tanks. Discussions related to perceptions and expectations in respect of modes of production and consumption, global warming, and EDF in general. The lessons learned were published in late 2021 in the form of a “citizen handbook” (2). The expectation of those consulted was that EDF should be engaged in a French low-carbon production strategy. They were keen to see the Company innovate, establish partnerships to hasten the energy transition, and create closer ties with its customers.
For the fourth consecutive year, EDF and Ipsos conducted an opinion survey on an unprecedented scale in 30 countries across five continents covering two-thirds of the world’s population, including the biggest emitters of CO2. Its aim is to produce an international overview of opinions, knowledge, expectations and levels of public engagement regarding climate change in order to provide food for thought and contribute to the constructive identification of solutions for the future.
The full results are available as open data (3). One of its main findings was that spending power tops the list of global concerns. Despite the importance they attach to climate change and extreme climate events, those consulted are less likely to get involved and more doubtful that climate change is man-made. Counter-intuitively, young Westerners only differ slightly from adults in terms of their awareness of or involvement regarding global warming. Globally, it is still hard to identify a stand- out “climate generation”.
The culture of dialogue promoted by the EDF group constantly seeks to improve and encourage social innovation at grassroots level and in the immediate environment of projects.
EDF is a partner of France’s new Versailles-Marseille National School of Landscape Architecture (École nationale supérieure des paysages de Versailles-Marseille, ENSP). It provides regular consultancy support for projects and infrastructures that raise landscape integration issues. EDF and ENSP have produced a best practice guide for infrastructure managers and project managers. In 2022, cross- generational surveys of young landscapers were conducted focusing on the Hague pool project and Ricanto power plant project (Corsica), as well as the EDF R&D site in Les Renardières.
EDF and UNCPIE are endeavouring to develop a ordinary culture and maintain close relations on the issues of the climate and the environment, by developing for instance – among other cooperations (PAAB, i.e., platforms of actions and stakeholders for biodiversity), following the heritage audit conducted in maritime Flanders in late 2021. A national agreement signed between EDF and UNCPIE was adapted into local agreements allowing nuclear power plants to benefit from the ecological expertise of CPIEs (taking inventories, drawing up management plans, preparing the scientific content of teaching materials) in the setup of biodiversity and local engagement projects by nuclear power plants, such as the laying of a footpath around the crest level of the Syrech (minor tributary of the River Garonne) in Golfech, the installation of a ordinary tern nesting platform in Gravelines, or the creation of a nature trail in the Font d’Orveau reserve in Civaux.
(2) https://parlonsenergies.fr/chez-vous/EDF_PECV_livre_T1.pdf
(3) edf.fr/groupe-edf/observatoire-international-climat-et-opinions-publiques/telechargements
(4) UNCPIE: National Union of Permanent Centres of Environmental Initiatives (Union nationale des centres permanents d’initiative pour l’environnement).
