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On June 4, 2025, the CSR, HSE, and responsible finance ecosystem gathered at the Tennaxia Connect event. Clients, experts, partners, and sustainability departments from large corporations and mid-sized companies shared their feedback, convictions, and ambitions regarding the sustainable transformation of businesses. This edition highlighted an increased demand for consistency between non-financial performance and overall strategy, with a common watchword: taking the time to act concretely and sustainably.
Through conferences, roundtables, and workshops, discussions converged on a clear message: sustainability isn't decreed; it's managed with method, data, and conviction.
Sustainable Finance: Non-Financial Factors Become a Pillar of Risk Analysis
The event opened with a roundtable highlighting the growing role of sustainable finance. Regulations such as the European Taxonomy, the SFDR or the CSRD have created regulatory pressure, but above all, a strong expectation for cultural transformation within companies.
Financial players are thus massively reorienting their assessment tools. Now, it's no longer about "ticking boxes," but about understanding if the company is capable of managing its sustainability trajectory.
“Non-financial risk has become a financial risk”, emphasized Xavier Leroy, Head of Advisory and Solutions at Ethifinance. He reminded attendees that companies with the best ESG ratings show up to 10% additional stock market performance.
Non-financial data therefore becomes a criterion for accessing financing : without credible ESG reporting, there are no preferential conditions. Banks have clearly understood this, implementing climate and ESG scores in their credit committees, as highlighted by Anthony Sinna, Head of Sustainable Finance at LCL. It's not an option: it's a criterion for resilience, a signal of strategic maturity.
A consensus emerged: Non-financial data is essential for decision-making, just like financial data. Reliability, comparability, and relevance are the pillars of a system that must serve as a strategic compass. But most importantly, this data must drive action.
However, be mindful of unintended consequences. As Philippe Kunter, Sustainable Development Director at Bpifrance, pointed out, VSEs/SMEs sometimes struggle to keep up. He emphasized the need to adapt analytical frameworks to enable smaller companies to undertake their sustainable transformation without compromising on standards. The real challenge is cultural: making CSR an internal transformation lever, serving long-term strategy.
Circular economy: from waste treatment to resource creation
"Waste is no longer a constraint; it's an industrial opportunity."
In recent years, waste management has been repositioned at the heart of companies' industrial and environmental strategy. The circular economy is no longer an ecological fad but a lever for value creation. This transformation has occurred thanks to the will of companies and the innovation of players in the waste sector. Through concrete examples, Silvia Bonilla, International Sustainable Development Manager at Séché Environnement, Jihan Mansouri, QHSE Director at Veolia Propreté Industries et Services, and Céline Ratanavanh, Head of the Circular Economy Department at Groupement Les Mousquetaires, demonstrated that the circular economy is accelerating at an unprecedented pace.
A particularly telling figure illustrates this evolution: today, 50% of waste is recovered, compared to only 10% 40 years ago.
Our speakers thus highlighted the importance oftechnological innovation enabling responses to increasingly specific cases, but also the rise of reuse. To ensure the development of this sector, they emphasized the key role of traceability, as well as the eco-design of products, conceived from their creation to anticipate their second life. This argument reinforces the idea of integrated and comprehensive management of companies' value chains.
In conclusion, our speakers reminded us that the logistical and industrial effort to better sort and recover waste should not be underestimated, as it ultimately results in benefits for the environment and for the company.
Decarbonization Management: from data to localized action
Successful decarbonization is based on three steps: measure, model, act.
Through concrete examples, Melissa Dahdouh, Sodexo's Climate Project Manager, illustrated the importance of localized governance, with country representatives responsible for adapting action plans to local realities. To further involve top management in the implementation of these plans, one suggested method was to incentivize them based on the results achieved.
Sébastien Mandron, Worldline's CSR Director, also identified Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as a key element in measuring GHG emissions generated by their operations, enabling a better understanding of product usage and emissions generated across the entire value chain.
As part of implementing a decarbonization plan within the company, both speakers agreed on the need to prioritize actions using a multi-criteria matrix combining costs, feasibility, and GHG impact.
They also emphasized thata decarbonization strategy is primarily based on the expressed uses and needs of end-users, technology alone cannot drive the transformation. For example, in the payment sector, user choices (paper receipts, plastic cards, terminals, etc.) determine up to 90% of emissions. Therefore, educational efforts are needed so that users are fully aware of the impact generated by their consumption patterns, as well as the alternatives available to them to reduce this impact.
To learn more, download the replay of our webinar on decarbonization pathways 👇
Responsible Procurement: thinking beyond tier 1
Sabine Jean-Dubourg, a consultant at The A Lab, led a participatory workshop alongside Mélanie Deal, ESG Project Director at Tennaxia, on the theme of 'Responsible Procurement at the Heart of CSR Strategy'.
This workshop was an opportunity to redefine the very concept ofresponsible procurement and to reiterate the need to broaden risk analysis beyond direct suppliers, by including critical links in the value chain.
Sabine Jean-Dubourg specified that 70% of environmental risks are currently hidden in the indirect supply chain. However, regulation (CSRD, CSDDD) mandates mapping suppliers... but not always at the right level.
“Outsourcing is not outsourcing risks,”she reminded.
Buyers must therefore become key players in resilience, capable of co-constructing with their suppliers, evaluating vulnerabilities to anticipate risks, whether environmental, social, or economic.
Among the solutions mentioned, multi-sourcing, supplier evaluation based on their environmental vulnerability, and understanding the cost of inaction are emerging as priorities to secure the company's sustainable performance.
Embedded CSR: governance, culture, and mobilization
Air France Industries, Bosch, and many Tennaxia clients share a common challenge: how to implement a global CSR strategy within a complex and matrix organization?
Jessie Delbe, Program Manager, Sustainability at Air France Industries, and Nicolas Hamm, HSE - CSR Coordinator for France and Benelux at Bosch France, highlighted the complexity of deploying a group CSR strategy at the local level. Establishing ambassador networks, local engagement, training, and empowering management are key to embedding these topics into employees' daily routines.
Strategy alone is not enough; it needs to be made desirable and actionable. This requires internal relays, incentives, sustainability committees, and alignment with the operational realities of the sites.
The result is a better understanding of the challenges, as well as a smoother flow of weak signals and best practices.
AI & CSR: potential and caution
To conclude the day, Patrick Nollet, CPTO of Tennaxia, explored the advantages and disadvantages related to the use of artificial intelligence in CSR initiatives.
At the crossroads of technological fascination and ethical prudence, the presentation reminded that despite its promises, the uses of artificial intelligence must be refocused on real utility and concrete impact within organizations.
It's no secret that AI requires enormous resources to function. A single query can generate up to 50g of CO₂eq. However, these resources (investments, land, energy, water, low-carbon electricity) directly compete with those needed for the ecological transition.
It's crucial to avoid the tempting pitfalls that AI appears to offer (reports generated without reliable data, gadget chatbots, or "over-labeled" AI for basic functions). And while some use cases are promising (dashboard creation, regulatory analysis, narrative consolidation), major questions still remain: AI's carbon footprint, bias in provided answers, data security, technological divide…
To conclude, while AI can indeed be an accelerator, it will never replace human discernment or strategic alignment. It must remain a tool, not an end in itself.
Conclusion
Tennaxia Connect 2025 reaffirmed a strong conviction: it's time to sustainably align strategy, finance, data, and action. Non-financial performance can no longer be separated from a company's overall performance. It is a reflection of it, and increasingly, its driving force. We warmly thank all our speakers for their insightful testimonies, the quality of their discussions, and the authenticity of their commitment. A big thank you also to all participants for their active presence, their relevant questions, and their contribution to this collective dynamic.