In a changing world, where the expectations of customers and employees are more geared towards using and reducing the environmental footprint, Crédit Agricole Group entities are getting in step with each other and changing some of their practices.
The topics of the second life of assets, waste management, eco-design or an inclusive approach to the solutions offered to customers represent real challenges to which Crédit Agricole responds. It operates in the three areas of the circular economy through:
- adapting its value proposition to drive customer demand and behaviour towards sustainability;
- initiatives to increase its sobriety and reduce its footprint;
- waste management.
This issue presents in a non-exhaustive way some initiatives led by the Group entities in the three areas. One of them, which is more atypical, is illustrated.
In the IT equipment sector, the example of Crédit Agricole Leasing & Factoring is emblematic throughout the Group. The company is pursuing its ambition to become a key player in the circular economy, mainly in terms of mobility and IT equipment serving its professional customers, businesses, farmers and local authorities.
It relies on its subsidiary Olinn*, an adapted company that facilitates access to employment for persons with disabilities, to support its customers throughout the entire value chain of a computer park, from the rental financing of new and/or reconditioned equipment to the reuse, through the management and associated services.
The company is strengthening its positioning with new offers rolled out to public authorities enabling them to meet their obligation to purchase at least 20% of IT equipment resulting from refurbishment and synergies established with other Group entities. For example, the Regional Banks Aquitaine, Atlantique Vendée, Centre-Est, Ile-de-France, Ille-et-Vilaine, Languedoc, Nord-Est and Normandie, Doxallia, Indosuez and CA-GIP work closely with Olinn.
* At its sites in Lunel and Villeneuve-la-Guyard, more than 110 Olinn employees refurbished more than 500,000 PCs and phones in 2024, twice as many as three years ago.
Find out more about Olinn through its partnership with CA-GIP
Read our latest news on the circular economy:
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Directing demand and behaviour towards sustainabilityAs part of their business, the Group’s entities are developing solutions to promote more responsible consumer demand and behaviour, including through Olinn through CAL&F. -
Reinforcing sobriety and reducing the environmental footprintIn addition to recycling, Crédit Agricole entities are attentive to sustainable purchasing and eco-design. To help boost the Group’s performance while creating value for the business lines while respecting its values and its environment, the Group has defined a genuine Responsible Purchasing Policy. Therefore, the purchases made must have the most positive environmental, social and economic impacts possible over the entire life cycle. -
RecycleMost entities are pursuing an active waste management policy with some original initiatives, including that of Crédit Agricole Italia which, as part of its Newlife programme born in 2018, donates meals not consumed by its employees to charitable associations. Crédit Agricole CIB already provides for the redistribution of foodstuffs not consumed at an event when a call for tenders is made with a caterer.