EPSA Foundation

EPSA Foundation

Launched in October 2019, EPSA Foundation’s purpose is to support and develop any public interest work or project of a social nature that collectively contributes to supporting vulnerable people in accessing or remaining in employment, with a view to fostering their personal development, autonomy and social (re)integration. In addition, the fund will support philanthropic, educational and humanitarian projects, as well as projects that contribute to the defense of the natural environment by working with our ecosystem to achieve a successful ecological transition, and more generally, any project of general interest that is in line with the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

EPSA Foundation wishes to contribute to a world built on human values by acting with the youth for a world more respectful of the environment, and, later, by accompanying the most fragile members of society in finding or reintegrating the job market. Thus, this endowment fund allows the group to have an impact on the up-and-coming generation in order to better prepare for tomorrow. Today, EPSA Foundation is one of the pillars of the “EPSA for Good” ambition which looks to lead the group towards its social and environmental transformation, while continuing to be a source of performance and sustainable growth for our clients.

Our ambition Article 1 Equal opportunities La cravate solidaire 100 000 entrepreneurs

Accompanying vulnerable people in accessing or maintaining employment, in order to promote their personal development, their autonomy and their social (re)integration. As a service company, our human capital is our driving force – it therefore makes sense that EPSA be committed towards total equality of opportunity in the job market.

EPSA, via EPSA Foundation, launched in 2019, its first partnership for the integration of young people from working-class backgrounds, with the association Article 1.

Article 1 accompanies high school and university students (85% of whom are on scholarships), with the conviction that all talents in France must grow in order to renew the faces and vision of success, regardless of social, economic, territorial or cultural origin.

Today, more than 50 EPSA volunteers in Paris, Lisses, Lyon, Toulouse and Sophia-Antipolis are committed to volunteering their skills in two formats:

Mentoring: Accompanying a student from 2 to 3 hours per month for 1 year, towards academic success (Bac+1 to Bac+5) and professional integration. Support him/her, share his/her professional experience, open doors…
Group workshop leader: During 2 hours, holding collective workshops in high schools (1st, Terminale, Prépa, BTS and DUT classes), on a relevant theme for young people and thus contribute to lifting their self-censorship and to prepare them in their school courses and thus their professional integration.

A territorial experiment aimed at reducing long-term unemployment, the Territoires zéro chômeur de longue durée project is currently being tested in a dozen territories in France, since January 2017.

Voted unanimously by parliament in 2016, Territoires zéro chômeur de longue durée is based on job creation through Entreprises à But d’Emploi (EBEs), which hire – on a voluntary basis – long-term unemployed people on permanent contracts. Thanks to the very varied skills of job seekers residing in the same territory, the emergence and realization of new and useful economic activities responding to local needs that have not been met until now is provoked.

EPSA Foundation supports this experimental law and more particularly the territories of Paris XIII and Villeurbanne. We hold two simultaneous missions of sponsorship of competences to accompany XIII Avenir and EmerJean in the professionalization of the purchasing function, and more precisely the construction and the installation of homogeneous procedures of purchases on the scale of all the structure and accompaniment of the teams purchases in the catch in hand of the procedures.

EPSA Foundation and La Cravate Solidaire are partners in supporting professional integration, and together they create a link with the other associations supported on this cause.

La Cravate Solidaire fights against social and appearance-related discrimination during job interviews for people in professional integration or reintegration. The association is open to all and offers support to any person actively seeking employment. Placed at the end of the integration chain, La Cravate Solidaire works in synergy with integration structures such as Territoires zéro chômeur de longue durée or equal opportunity programs such as Article 1. Each year, more than 3,000 beneficiaries are accompanied, with a 70% success rate at interviews.

EPSA Foundation contributes, notably through clothing collection campaigns, to providing the association’s beneficiaries with appropriate clothing for a job interview. It also reflects the commitment of employees to individual support workshops: “Coup de pouce”.

Because EPSA Group has been an entrepreneurial adventure for more than 20 years, EPSA Foundation is a partner of 100 000 Entrepreneurs. This alliance, initiated several years ago within the framework of the PAQTE, forms with other associations, a complete chain in favor of equal opportunities.

100,000 Entrepreneurs, which has an agreement with the French Ministry of Education, has a clear mission: to transmit the culture and desire for entrepreneurship to young people between the ages of 13 and 25 in metropolitan and overseas France, thanks to the testimonies of entrepreneurs/intrapreneurs (company managers, project leaders within a group) in schools and extracurricular establishments (second chance schools, local missions, etc.).

Since 2007, more than 600,000 young people have been made aware of the issue and EPSA is involved by hiring some 20 associate employees throughout France and throughout the year (Mois des Quartiers, women’s entrepreneurship, etc.). This commitment marks the desire to transmit the common denominator of corporate leadership: entrepreneurship.

Great cause EPSA 2020 – 2022

Our ambition Let’s act together for the environment Childhood and environment

Mesures relatives à la lutte contre les changements climatiques

The defense of the natural environment and the ecological transition is the Group’s “Great Cause” for 2020-2022, chosen by more than half of our employees, with a special focus on the link between childhood and the environment.

Environmental challenges require an exceptional and coordinated response. Beyond general awareness, it is now necessary to accelerate said transformation, and to render it concrete and palpable. This is the ambition of our Great Cause.

Therefore, EPSA Foundation articulates its actions around two objectives: a broad contribution to the resolution of environmental issues with the participation in the “Let’s act together for the environment” campaign facilitated by Make.org; and the support, during these three years, of structures carrying out actions of awakening, sensitization and education of the younger generations to the stakes and the challenges of an ecological “green” transition.

Since the end of 2019, EPSA via EPSA Foundation, is committed alongside many companies (Kering, Monoprix, EDF, JCDecaux, Citeo…), experts, institutions, NGOs and citizens to carry together the project “Let’s act together for the environment”, facilitated by Make.org.

This collective approach, involving all stakeholders, is crucial to move forward in the right direction. With the support of experts and actors in the field, we will have to work intensively to involve everyone and make the efforts necessary to affect real change.

This initiative places us in a process of co-construction, consensual and above all long term, of 3 years, which goes from the citizen consultation to action. More than a hundred EPSA employees have already been able to take part in the high points of the project, as well as an 8-month skills sponsorship to help steer the transformation phase (co-designing and qualifying ideas into action plans).

Learn more about the project

Because it is necessary to provide long-term support to the structures that are active in the field, EPSA Foundation supports 3 projects for a period of 3 years with the aim of participating in their development or change of scale. Following a call for projects launched at the end of 2019, the winners will benefit from financial sponsorship and volunteer skills. Selected in a spirit of promotion, these projects will work together to provide a complementary response to the challenges of awakening, raising awareness and educating young people about the ecological transition.

Surfrider Europe strongly believes in education and pedagogy to accompany environmental, economic and societal changes in a relevant way. Within this framework, a climate change education program has been developed: Thanks to the Surfrider Campus and the Ocean Campus, an online environmental education platform, everyone can learn about current environmental issues in a fun way. Through workshops, games, videos and quizzes, children can learn how to implement sustainable alternatives to protect the ocean every day.

The Lab Mobile is a series of manual workshops that awaken children to the protection of the environment through play and creativity. At each workshop, children discover a theme related to the environment: zero waste and my toys, biodiversity in the city, eating seasonally; and make a creation out of recycled or natural materials: a wooden toy, a bird feeder, a rotating calendar of seasonal vegetables… Children develop their creativity and manual skills while discovering how to help the planet on a daily basis.

Little Citizens for Climate supports young people in their commitment to the environment. The association is represented by young ambassadors from all over the world who propose to talk to you in their own way about the 6th extinction. How do they do it? Through an educational series on extinct or critically endangered animals, under an original and playful angle, that is to say embodying the animal, making it talk about itself through cards that will also be told and illustrated by children.

Ourcommitments

As an extension of these actions EPSA has been a signatory of Paqte Avec les Quartiers pour Toutes les Entreprises, since 2018.

An initiative of the French Ministry of Territorial Cohesion and Relations with Local Authorities, propelled by IMPACT partners and Bpifrance, PAQTE commits EPSA and EPSA Foundation to work towards better economic inclusion of these territories and their inhabitants. EPSA and EPSA Foundation are working on 4 axes (Training, Awareness, Recruiting and Purchasing) to implement concrete actions for a real impact.

More specifically, EPSA is a partner of the Impacting Purchasing Tour (IPT), alongside IMPACT, the GESAT network and the Les Echos-Le Parisien Group. The aim of the TAI is to support entrepreneurs from the QPVs and disabled-friendly companies in their promotion to French contractors. The aim of the meetings is to give concrete expression to solidarity sourcing and to exchange on responsible purchasing practices.

At the end of 2020, EPSA Foundation signed, along with 30 other foundations and funds, the Manifesto of French Foundations and Endowments to fight against climate change.

Mobilization for the climate is still too modest. It is urgent to accelerate the involvement of foundations and endowments on this central issue of climate change. To this end, the French Coalition of Climate Foundations (CFFC) is committed to mobilizing the entire philanthropic sector around this priority issue.

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