Why do companies already engaged in CSR also become “companies with a mission”?

The status of a “mission company”, defined since 2019 by the law on the growth and transformation of enterprises, known as the Pact Law, is intended to allow for the redrawing of the contours of the contribution of the organization that hosts it to society. This recent form of engagement promotes the combination of economic imperatives with social and environmental needs and encourages companies to understand their Global Performance.

Since the existence of this system, some companies have adopted this recent legal status, which thus becomes enforceable against shareholders, for example. For these organizations, it allows them to go further in confirming their commitments to social and environmental responsibility (CSR), whose statutes have no legal value.

In this context, some companies declare that they put CSR at the heart of their activities, e.g. mutual insurance Maife-commerce company Kamifor even an organic producer Leah NatureI recently decided.

In these companies, both concepts, CSR and the “mission-driven company”, coexist and in some cases even reinforce each other.

MAIF, a “political” company.

MAIF was originally founded in 1934 to offer an alternative to the pricing practices of the insurance companies of the time. Initially focusing on teachers, MAIF gradually expanded its membership base and broadened its offerings.

As we have observed in our researchfurther strategic developments allowed mutual insurance companies to stand out from the competition: from the organization of mutual insurance companies with social objectives towards social responsibility (CSR), they wanted to take an additional step in their commitment.

This uniqueness has even been taken into account in the latest MAIF strategic plans: commitment since 2006. United Nations Global Compact, Ethifinance’s evaluation of its performance in 2010; then by the French Standardisation Association (Afnor) in 2016 investments taking into account, from 2019, the analysis of environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) criteria, etc.

Its mission statement for 2020 takes into account its accumulated expertise and its next commitments. Moreover, the transition to a mission-driven enterprise is not a goal, but rather an additional step that reflects its overall performance, in which it is part “political” organization.The aim of the debate is not to focus on the primacy of one social approach over another (CSR or “missionary society”), but rather on the formulation and coherence of the social commitments pursued by the MAIF.

Camif, a “company with a mission” since… 2017

Since 2009, Camif has placed CSR at the heart of its model. Driven by a differentiation strategy, the company’s approach quickly became part of a continuum of commitment to social responsibility.

Although it published its first CSR report in 2013 and received, among others, BCorp certification In 2015, Camif acquired what was then the forerunner of its mission committee, “Cellul’OSE.” This entity ensures the link between the strategic directions and the company’s economic, social and environmental issues.

The desire to be one of the actors changing the ways of production and consumption is materialized through symbolic actions that have become significant in the CSR strategy: transparency of the origin of products and their place of production, closing the website until Black Friday, promoting a VAT reduction for responsible products with positive impacts, promoting a platform for renovating, repairing or recycling furniture, etc.

Fueled by its social responsibility, Camif already included a mission in its statute in 2017, when the Pact Act had not yet been promulgated! By becoming a mission-oriented company in 2020, in accordance with the law, Camif is now part of the effort to best organize its social activities using a CSR policy supported by a mission-oriented company strategy.

Léa Nature “has carved its commitments in stone”

Léa Nature is an agri-food company specializing in the production of natural and organic products. Its guiding principle is “act coherently to reconcile economy and ecology”.

For over 20 years, Léa Nature has built itself through the sustainable development of its entire value chain. Thanks to a powerful CSR policy, the company has managed to reduce its carbon footprint, optimize energy consumption, aid develop local organic sectors, etc. In this way, Léa Nature has paid 13.5 million euros for 1,900 environmental projects, of which 1% for the planet.

In 2011, the company also created the Léa Nature/Jardin Bio Foundation to raise awareness of causes that are in the public interest. Finally, in 2013, it achieved the level of excellence according to Ecocert organization.

But the emergence of the mission-driven company in 2019 allowed her to expand her organization’s sustainability in a different way. “We’ve known for a long time that we were a mission-driven company. The law just allowed us to officially register that.”

Léa Nature’s CEO confirms that “The Law of the Pact allows us to engrave in stone, that is to say in our statutes, our environmental mission. For more than 20 years, we have been trying to implement this mission to the best of our ability. Environmental commitments are no longer an option for us, but an obligation.”

Towards overall efficiency?

How can the concepts of CSR and mission-driven society work together to aid a company design and manage its overall performance? This question requires theoretical elaboration in the lightweight of practices that are becoming increasingly common at this stage. The Concept bisociation by essayist Arthur Koestler helps shed lightweight on the connections that a mission-based society and CSR can maintain.

The link between the two thinking matrices, operational CSR expertise and the formalization of mission-oriented company quality, is based on the common goal of expanded corporate responsibility to reduce negative externalities and promote positive ones. The link is also based on providing a CSR approach to establish and achieve the social and environmental goals that the mission-oriented company would formalize.

Thinking through bisociation allows us to go beyond the possible oppositions between the two approaches and look for plain complementarities or synergies. It also allows us to better understand why the two concepts coexist and reinforce each other in some companies.

The three examples examined clearly show that CSR commitments and the status of a “mission company” are not at all contradictory, but complementary. Using the system provided for in the Pact law makes it possible to further reinforce the desire to improve the overall performance that these organizations strive for. These examples can therefore inspire other companies wishing to strengthen their commitments.