Bureau meeting January 2025
18.04.2025
Koen HERMANS is delighted to welcome the members of the European Committee to this first meeting of 2025, which is being held in the new premises on Avenue Matignon. The plenary session in June will also be held there. The new premises reflect the Group's dynamism and the central role given to collaboration and teamwork. This session will be dedicated to two regulatory developments (the whistleblowing system and CSRD regulations) and a review of the 2024 Shareplan.
Presentation of the Professional Whistleblowing
AXA's professional alert system is a fundamental part of the Group's ethics, centred on integrity and inclusion.
Led by Amaury de Warenghien, Group Internal Audit Director, and Heather Ness, Director of Investigations, this system encourages all employees to report behaviour or situations that contravene the company's codes of conduct.
To facilitate reporting, several channels are available, including email, the SpeakUp system, human resources, line managers, as well as training courses entitled ‘Care, Dare and Protect’ and the compliance department.
Employee protection: a specific process is in place to ensure employee protection.
Follow-up and accessibility: follow-up is carried out at Group level, with reporting of statistics and lessons learned from investigations, with a view to improving processes and reducing future risks.
CSRD Directive (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive)
The CSRD Directive, under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste de Verthamon, Head of Sustainable Development Reporting for the Group, aims to harmonise sustainability reporting by European companies and improve the quality of published corporate social responsibility (CSR) data. It is part of the European Union's Sustainable Finance Package.
Main objectives of the CSRD:
- Ensure that companies provide the necessary information to stakeholders.
- Extend the application of the rules to a larger number of companies.
- Introduce data standardisation and require more accurate information than previous regulations.
- Ensure greater consistency with other European regulations and international reporting frameworks.
- Establish a proportionality-based approach.
The CSRD will enable companies to produce a single sustainability report for the entire Group, covering all their subsidiaries. The report will be included in AXA's annual report and submitted to the Audit Committee for approval by the Board of Directors.
SHAREPLAN 2024 - Key Figures
Under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, Head of Employee Benefits and Group Share Ownership Plan, the 31st edition of SHAREPLAN enabled employees to invest in the company on favourable terms. The terms of the 2024 offer were similar to those of 2023, offering two options: ‘Classic Offer’ and ‘Guaranteed Plus Offer’.
Approximately 115,000 employees in 40 countries were eligible, and more than 22% of them, or 26,000 subscribers, participated in the offer. The total amount of the capital increase exceeded €400 million, representing a 13% increase over the previous year.
For the SHAREPLAN 2025 operation, Jean-Baptiste Rousseau expressed the objective of expanding the subscriber base by offering a competitive offer tailored to the savings products on the market. He also stressed the importance of maintaining the stability and collective nature of the operation.
The work of the secretariat:
Pascale Rauline, secretary of the EWC, presented the secretariat's areas of focus for 2025:
- Prevention of incivility and harassment of employees by external parties,
- Monitoring the implementation of the 50+ charter signed in 2023,
- Continued development of artificial intelligence
Find the minutes of the secretariat here: