Committed company: how to guarantee the sustainability of the project?

To guarantee the sustainability of its approach, a committed company has several options, more or less restrictive.

Since the PACTE law, all French companies are required to take social and environmental issues into consideration. This law promulgated in May 2019 has in fact modified the definition of the object of the company in the Civil Code by adding the following paragraph in l’article 1833 : “The company is managed in its social interest, taking into consideration the social and environmental issues of its activity”.

A committed company that wants to go further over the long term can turn to a label RSEget l’agrément ESUS, write down a reason for being in its statutes or even become a mission-driven company. These different approaches can be complementary. For example, at the end of 2022, 9% of mission-driven companies also benefit from a CSR label.

Committed company: opt for a label

There are different general CSR labels: B Corp, LUCIE, Positive Workplace or Committed to CSR of AFNOR which assesses the maturity of organizations’ CSR approaches on the basis of the ISO 26000 standard. They all have different specifications and sometimes involve statutory modifications as is the case with the B Corp label. These labels generally have a validity period limited to a few years and are part of a process of continuous improvement.

Obtain the ESUS agrément

Another instrument for formalizing a company’s commitment is l’agrément ESUS (social utility solidarity enterprise), created by the law of July 31, 2014. Companies wishing to obtain it must meet certain criteria (pursuit of a social utility mission, capped remuneration, etc.), even if certain Companies benefit from it by right, such as structures for integration through economic activity (SIAE). This approval allows access to solidarity savings financing and to benefit from certain tax and social advantages.

Determine a purpose

Another way to sustain your commitments is to include a reason for being in its statutes. It is also an innovation of the PACTE law which completed l’article 1835 of the Civil Code by the following paragraph: “The statutes may specify a reason for being, consisting of the principles with which the company adopts and for the respect of which it intends to allocate means in carrying out its activity”.

Adopt the quality of “mission company”

The most legally binding route is to adopt the quality of “mission company”, also introduced by the PACTE law. This optional framework is described by articles L210-10 to L210-12 of the Commercial Code. L’article L210-10 details the conditions necessary to become a company with a mission, in particular the inclusion in the statutes of a reason for being, social and environmental objectives and specific governance.

According to the law, the raison d’être and statutory objectives must fall directly within the framework of the company’s activities. However, more than half of the companies studied by KPMG and the Observatory of Mission Companies in a with published in May 2023 have defined statutory purposes and objectives “partially or even completely uncorrelated in their formulation of the direct object of their mission and their core activity”. From this follows a “risk of confusion between a “classic” corporate social responsibility strategy and a mission-driven company approach.”

The status of “mission company” is, to a certain extent, enforceable. In the event of non-compliance with the missions, the commercial court may be seized by the public prosecutor or any interested person in order to require the company concerned to delete the mention “company with mission” from all its acts, documents or electronic media. .