The environmental transition that we promote for our terroirs is inseparable from our human and social ambition. We are a community of Men and Women united around common values: excellence for our exceptional products, respect, desire for constant progress on parity, inclusion, diversity, sharing the value of the company, support for more responsible consumption, etc. We extend this human component of our CSR strategy to our partner-farmers, winegrowers, bartenders, etc., stakeholders that we continue to encourage and value because they are essential in our ecosystem.
Excellence, humanism, sincerity and collective intelligence give our community a strong backbone that allows us to move forward.
In order to guarantee that our ethical commitments cross through all our activities, "CSR champions", drivers of our committed approach, have been working with passion since 2022. Their presence on the ground reflects our determination in this area and is the foundation of our action.
Sharing and transmitting our heritage, both intangible through our values and tangible through our financial support, is part of our genetic make-up.
In order to guarantee that our ethical commitments cross through all our activities, "CSR champions", drivers of our committed approach, have been working with passion since 2022. Their presence on the ground reflects our determination in this area and is the foundation of our action.
Sharing and transmitting our heritage, both intangible through our values and tangible through our financial support, is part of our genetic make-up.
At Rémy Cointreau, we believe that diversity within our community is a vehicle for prosperity, openness and performance. Professional gender equality is a pillar of this approach, and we are targeting a score of 90/100 on the Professional Equality Index for our French sites by 2025 (89/100 in 2023). At the Executive Committee level, we are aiming for 40% women by 2025 and parity by 2030.
In practical terms, we ensure that pay is equal between men and women on recruitment with equal skills and also for individual pay rises. We take care to facilitate the organisation of the work of our parent employees (childcare, maternity leave, etc.). Finally, the Group monitors the ratio of female to male managers, which was almost equal in 2023 (46% vs. 54%). We also ensure equitable access to training. All these indicators allow us to approach this subject rationally, and to carry out targeted and appropriate actions to achieve a fair balance.
Throughout the Group and in our Maisons, we seek the most favourable working conditions for our employees, because we believe that this guarantees their well-being and professional development.
In Scotland, our Bruichladdich distillery even distinguished itself in 2022 and 2023 by obtaining the label “Best place to work for women in the UK”, and “Best place to work for well-being”. Our producer of exceptional whisky and gin has organised an “annual well-being week” with spaces and activities to facilitate enjoyment of life at work and mental health, such as yoga, a library and meditation. Women returning from maternity leave are given customised coaching and International Women’s Day is the subject of open discussions and events on issues of parity and vulnerability. All these activities help our British employees feel better within our Group.
Bruichladdich is also the first whisky distillery to be awarded the “B-Corp” label, which rewards its social and environmental performance, in a small circle of 4,000 companies worldwide.
At Rémy Cointreau, social balance and the feeling of belonging to united collective are fundamental values. As a result, we want to engage our employees in the Group through an employee shareholding plan called “My Rémy Cointreau”.
In 2021, the Group rolled out its first employee shareholding plan reserved for French employees, offering the possibility of acquiring Rémy Cointreau shares at discount price. This plan met with great success with a subscription rate of nearly 77%. In 2022, the Group opened a new plan, this time reserved for international employees. It was again marked by a high take-up rate, with nearly 50% of employees choosing to invest, showing their strong commitment to and confidence in the Group’s long-term development prospects.
By the end of these two plans, 61% of employees were shareholders of the Rémy Cointreau group!
Ensuring the commitment of our bar and restaurant partners is crucial to encourage them to take part in our sustainable transition. We have therefore formalised this dimension of our relationship by creating an ad hoc community, The Sustainable Shakers, which brings together our on-trade partners (restaurants, bars, hotels, etc.) who share our values. Our desire here is to highlight them, to bring visibility to their sustainable development actions on our Group social networks, through a series of videos. The BOCA restaurant in Dubai was the setting to our Sustainable Shakers launch where we drafted the first report.
Beyond providing visibility, Sustainable Shakers is a lively community hosting events dedicated to sharing responsible practices – circular economy, energy sufficiency, responsible innovation, etc. Our ambition is to position ourselves with this network of key players in wines and spirits as a committed partner in terms of environmental responsibility, on which they can rely to support their own ambition.
Supporting our communities
Over the past five years, we have funded more than €5 million in sponsorship or direct and indirect actions to support our communities around the world. In this way, we want to continue to be a positive impact player in our business areas, beyond being an attentive employer. Supported associations include 40cean in Barbados and the United States (beach cleaning), support for students in internships or apprenticeships, tree plantations, support for young people in difficulty/from Priority Inner-City Neighbourhoods…
Engaging our employees in skills sponsorship
In 2022, we also launched skills sponsorship with our Fondation and with the Group’s employees. Coordinated by Vendredi, a platform for connecting associations and businesses, this sponsorship program allows employees to invest two days a year working for an association, where their skills will be useful and appreciated.
Our employees are the foundation of the success of R.E.S.P.E.C.T., our proprietary responsible consumption ritual. It is therefore logical that we started raising awareness through them, to make them ambassadors to our partners and clients by deploying our E-learning. In 2023, 59% receive training through the program with its seven-step protocol for responsible drinking. Across the Group, we particularly put the spotlight on these practices for our target groups most concerned with consumption, such as our salespeople, ambassadors, cellar managers and their teams, who often represent the Group commercially.
Our challenge of promoting responsible drinking is common to all our markets, intimately linked to the vision we carry on our wines and exceptional liqueurs, and to the care we take with the health of our employees. This cultural ownership of our driving forces is all the more important as we aim in the coming years to raise awareness among our stakeholders – bars, hotels, restaurants, consumers, etc.
This is why we are now providing special support to the people who are most often in contact with them.
