Former Secretary of State to the Minister for Ecological Transition and Solidarity from 2017 to 2020, Brune Poirson has joined the Accor group in spring 2021. Her mission: to define the sustainable development strategy.

What role do you see companies playing in the fight against climate change?

They have a major role to play. What do we need today to achieve the energy transition? Concrete solutions, collaboration, radicalism and hope. With a third of the world's countries failing to meet their commitments under the Paris agreements, businesses have a duty to take up the baton, to act, and to act fast.. We also need extreme forms of collaboration, which were so lacking in the 20th century, a period dominated by competition. This is what Accor is doing by joining the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance to work with other players in the sector to find answers to today's challenges. As for radicalism, this is precisely what is difficult to implement on the scale of a State, whose role is to speak on behalf of an entire country. Companies, on the other hand, can take very strong positions. Finally, we need hope. It's vital to show young people that their professional commitment will bring about change.

At Accor, what are your 'environmental' ambitions?

We are trying to help solve systemic problems that go beyond the hotel industry. At a time when the Covid-19 crisis has widened inequalities, a group like ours must play its role as a social lift. In the age of 'Black Lives Matter', we too can fight against inequality. One of the key areas we are working on is preserving biodiversity. To achieve carbon neutrality, it is not enough to reduce our emissions; we also need to preserve the carbon sinks that are the oceans, forests, etc.... We set up our first programme to combat waste back in 1998. We are currently working on the entire supply chain in our restaurants to ensure that we behave as responsibly as possible.

What did your CSR commitments mean during the health crisis?

Our CEO Sébastien Bazin had the courage to launch the All Heartist Fund to help employees and their families, the people on the front line of Covid-19. We allocated 25 % of the dividends planned for 2020 to this fund, i.e. 70 million euros that benefited people all over the world. In France, mechanisms such as short-time working have helped to cushion the impact of the economic crisis, but this was not the case everywhere. So we were able to play this insurance role for some people.

What role does a company like Accor play in raising awareness of the need for more responsible behaviour in the office?

CEOs can no longer say to themselves "I'm waiting for consumers and employees to ask us for more responsible products"! We want our employees to be environmental activists, to hold us to account! We need to be able to support them, and that's why the physical office, where people can meet and talk, is so important. sharing the corporate culture remains fundamental. In concrete terms, our head office is an HQE building, the lifts produce some of their own energy, we recover rainwater and we no longer use single-use plastic.

How will offices have to evolve in the future?

We need very concrete changes. The only way to make an impact is to be open to others. You have to start by being humble, by asking yourself: "What problems do I want to solve? Naturally, this reflection leads you to collaborate, to change your organisation. I'd love to see companies integrate Café Joyeux into their lobbies, for example, and allow passers-by to sit in. It's bound to be unusual, and it may upset certain habits, but that's also the mission of a company. That's why the physical location is so important: you can't achieve this degree of impact if your company is 100 % teleworking.

Brune Poirson, Director of Sustainable Development at Accor