Ocean Initiatives: a Day of Solidarity for IÉSEG employees
05/23/2022
The CSR dimension being deeply rooted in its Vision and Strategy, IÉSEG is particularly keen to transmit its values of achievement, responsibility, integrity, solidarity and engagement to its students but also to its employees.
Therefore, the management decided to set up the “Solidarity Days”, a day dedicated each year to academic and administrative teams so that they can get involved in a cause. This year, the “Ocean Initiatives” were put in the spotlight. Two days of waste collection, sorting and analysis, on the seashore near Dunkirk and on the banks of the Canal Saint-Martin in Paris, were organized in partnership with the Surfrider Foundation, an organization that works worldwide to protect the ocean by calling on governments and companies to take action to fight against the contamination of marine life.
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Born from the desire of two IÉSEG employees – Anaïs ANDREOSSO and Léopold RIGAUT – to commit themselves to this environmental cause, the Ocean Initiatives aim to raise awareness among the School’s staff on this matter, but also to participate in the awareness of governments and companies by transmitting the results of the analysis to the Surfrider Foundation.
After winning the Big Idea Challenge of IÉSEG, which aims to give everyone the opportunity to propose new ideas or activities related to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Anaïs and Léopold were able to implement concretely their project within the framework of the Solidarity Days. In parallel to these solidarity days, the Surfrider Foundation also gave a conference on global warming on the IÉSEG campus.
“The fact that IÉSEG allows us to have a day deducted from our working time to carry out a solidarity action shows its willingness to invest in its values of solidarity and engagement, as well as in the development of its CSR dimension. The School is consistent in its approach to train tomorrow’s changemakers sinAce it is not only about sorting waste but also about analyzing it to transmit data to the Surfider Foundation in order to act with governments and companies and thus contribute to positive change for the environment and society. This is a great project and we are delighted that it has been implemented, it shows how much the School is committed to the planet“, say Léopold and Anaïs.
On May 10th and 12th, 2022, more than 60 IÉSEG employees were on the field and collected more than 200 liters of waste over more than 10 km. Photos and a report on the collected waste were then sent to the Surfrider Foundation.
“This is a subject that is close to my heart and, personally, I have already implemented several solutions to reduce my waste (using reusable instead of disposable, compost, zero waste shopping …). After a short briefing, we divided into 2 teams and collected waste for about 2 hours. We then got together to analyze what we had collected,” explains Claire Philippe, FLE professor at IÉSEG.
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For her part, Gwarlann De Kerviller, professor of Marketing and Head of the “Marketing & Sales” Department explains: “I chose to participate in the Ocean Initiative in Paris because it seems essential to me to get involved in concrete actions to protect the environment. I was also interested in the awareness-raising and training aspects for the participants. Finally, carrying out a group action with participants coming from different departments gave even more richness and meaning to this initiative. We were all very motivated and shared a real desire to contribute to improving the cleanliness of the place without sparing our efforts.”
Finally, Stéphanie Lambert, Accreditations and Quality project manager in Lille, concludes, “Personally, I want to get involved in actions of this type, but we don’t necessarily have the time in our daily lives. We have our work and our family life. The fact that IÉSEG has implemented these days of solidarity actions allows us to get involved while building relationships with colleagues we are not used to seeing or know very little about. This reinforced my idea to continue to be careful about sorting my waste.“