Fundamental social rights
Every employee has fundamental social rights, regardless of their qualification level and the country in which they perform their activity.
Performances
Veolia Environnement respects the basic human rightsdefined by international authorities such as the ILO and OECD. In particular, the Group only accepts contracts if it issure that it can comply with these rights.
The Group determines whether :
- the remuneration is sufficient for a decent standard of living (see graph);
- there is any social protection (retirement, health);
- basic skills are possessed and enable acquisition of minimum autonomy in one's work;
- there is no discrimination when hiring or when making promotions within the company;
- work conditions are appropriate (minimum risks of accident, stress, etc.);
- there is an opportunity for stating individual or collective opinions.
In 2007, the Group decided to give itself minimum social standards applicable to all countries in which it operates.
The creation of these standards takes account of the nature of our activities and they will be implemented progressively in cooperation with union organizations.
Thus, further work will be done in five major fields involving all stakeeholders within the company :
Graphics: 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5
- safety and work conditions;
- guarantee of a decent income and minimum social protection;
- employee representation and right of expression;
- non-discrimination and equality of opportunities;
- long-term employment and professional progress.
Diversity of local contexts
Training on subjects other than safety vary as a function of the level of education of the countries. When this level is low,
the emphasis is placed on basic knowledge (reading,writing,arithmetic).
Therefore, every employee has the opportunity to improve his/her skills, regardless of his/her origin,seniority or initial training.
The Group creates work contracts complying with national legal durations, to match local reality as reasonably as possible. The use of overtime depends on local practice in each country and the specific nature of different activities. Individual layoffs remained limited (3.2% of the total workforce) in 2007 and the number of collective layoffs (326 in all)
was 17% less than it had been in 2006.
Assessing our corporate responsibility in Africa and Latin America
Environmental and social rating campaigns carried out at Veolia Environnement's request in 2007 enable the Group to have an inventory of conditions under which it exercises responsibility in Africa andin South America. The results of these audits will be used in 2008 as a basis for considering furtherdetails of our sustainable development policy in these sensitive areas.
Africa
Veolia Environnement has mandated Vigeo to measure its degree of managerial commitment on the African continent regarding its main social responsibility objectives that it is obliged to maintain.
Three separate audits were carried out in Morocco (Water), Niger (Water) and Egypt (waste management), and they were extended by a documentary analysis and interviews with managers of the Water subsidiary in Gabon.
The evaluated entities represent 76% of the workforce and 81% of the revenue of the Group in the Africa-Middle East area.
Specific social and environmental features expose the Group to high risks in these fields.
In this context, the "probative" level 3 rating on our 4-level scale corresponds to a reasonable assurance of risk control.
"Advanced" rating for objectives :
- contribution to the development of access to water for the poorest;
- quality of the remuneration and social protection systems for employees;
- safety and continuity of services provided to users.
"Probative" rating for objectives :
- protection of water resources and fight against climate change;
- contribution to economic and social local development;
- prevention of corruption;
- quality of employment management;
- quality of the relation to delegating authorities.
"Initiated" rating for objectives :
- protection of health & safety of employees (deployment of embryonic safety management in a country);
- improvement to social employment conditions for subcontractors (Group programs deployed partially);
- social communication quality (in a country,
no commitment observed for emergence of elected representatives of personnel); - quality of the relation with the client user (heterogeneous maturity of client care systems).
Latin America
BMJ Ratings has carried out an evaluation of companies in the Proactiva subsidiary present in Latin America.
The waste and water businesses were analyzed in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela based on environmental, social and society criteria to identify challenges faced by the Group. The evaluated companies represent 46% of the workforce and revenue for the Latin America area.
Risk mitigation and opportunity maps have been drawn up to rate the performance of actions carried out and the relevance of sustainable development policies adopted.
Analysis
BMJ has recognized technical leadership and high quality integrated management of environmental challenges.
With comparable degrees of engagement,
the different subsidiaries have identified their responsibilities for managing these local impacts in terms of nuisance and pollution.
On a continent in which national GDPs are growing at between 4 and 10%, the need for treatment of municipal and industrial waste and problems related to the management of water is rapidly increasing, with consequences that Proactiva's subsidiaries have anticipated.
Despite the lack of strict regulations and legislation,management methods meeting the highest international standards have been adopted to deal with social and community aspects. Employee safety is defined as a priority objective,and the results achieved are better than the average observed in the sector.
Recommandations
Two projects are still to be completed under this favourable context.
Firstly the organization of the management processes that are still too informal to guarantee efficiency and advantaged perceived by stakeholders concerned, and secondly the organization of a complete steering and reporting system enabling the transfer of knowledge and good practices.
Degree of commitment of Veolia Environnement
