The societal and environmental responsibility
of corporations
Issue editor: Xavier Cuny

Editorial
Pierre Couveinhes

Foreword
Xavier Cuny

A fast changing legal and regulatory framework

Environmental and societal responsibility: Prevention is better than… being responsible?
Philippe Ledenvic
“Responsible, but not guilty”… What if it all started out from these four words that rang like a thunderclap during a carefree era?

 
Appraisals by experts

 
How much are snails worth if they don’t come from Burgundy? Biodiversity: Which values? For which decisions?
Claire Tutenuit and Camille Stehlin

How to calculate biodiversity’s economic value? Three methods exist based on, respectively, the damages set by law, the value of the services rendered by ecosystems and the value of eventually comparable transactions.

 
Are the polluters of our waterways paying?
André Wulf and Patrick Dalion

Are the polluters of our waterways paying? Offhand, the answer is simply “yes”; many of them are. But are all of them? The answer is just as simple: obviously not…

 
The environmental and societal responsibility of international waste-management firms
Daniel Blain and Gerard Fries

International waste-management firms assume societal responsibility by controlling the processes for treating and recycling wastes, by implementing best practices and by adopting codes of professional ethics that set minimum standards.

Corporate policies and environmental strategies

 
The Safran Group addresses environmental issues
Régis Briquet and Bertrand Fiol

Climatic change, the growing scarcity of natural resources, the nuisances generated by airports, chemicals… to cope with these major environmental issues and foster sustainable development in aeronautics as well as the space and defense industries, the Safran Group, through its subsidiaries, is trying to formulate concrete responses and prepare the future.

The French Atomic Energy Commission’s environmental approach
Didier Kimmel

Involved in many fields of research with a strong potential for innovation — ranging from nanotechnology to nuclear power — the French Atomic Energy Commission has to analyze and control several risks. In addition, it pursues a policy based on saving resources and rationally using them as well as on conservation of the environment.

The metal industry’s current contribution and objectives in relation to corporate environmental responsibility
Claire de Langeron

Depending on the state of technology during various periods, the metal industry has long been involved in conserving the environment and preventing risks for its personnel. Big and small companies in this sector want to pursue these efforts by placing them in a long-term perspective.

 
Miscellany

 
The problems raised in environmental health by defining specifications for soil referents
Côme Daniau, Frédéric Dor, Sébastien Denys, Adeline Floch-Barneaud and William Dab

In environmental health, soil samples are compared to determine pollution trends in a locality or to calculate to what degree pollution should be attributed to a specific source. But it is hard to make such appraisals, qualitatively as well as quantitatively.

In memoriam: Georges-Yves Kervern
Paul-Henri Bourrelier