AXA Group

This approach is behind the trust-based relationships that AXA has built up with its stakeholders as of 2003:

• Employees: ensuring professional fulfillment by offering a supportive and respectful workplace where people are empowered and the continuous development of skills is encouraged.
• Clients: consistently delivering efficient local services and adapted solutions, while adhering to the highest standard of professional conduct.
• Shareholders: achieving industry-leading operating performance levels in order to create lasting value, and providing them with transparent information.
• Suppliers: maintaining excellent relationships with suppliers by adhering to a set of clearly defined procurement guidelines and promoting ongoing dialogue.
• Environment: contributing to environmental preservation efforts by making our environmental risk management capabilities available and promoting environmentally sound practices in the workplace.
• Community: acting as a responsible corporate citizen by sharing our professional expertise with the community, innovating in the area of employment and sponsoring philanthropic initiatives.

These commitments are further developed and illustrated in the "Corporate responsibility" section

In April 2002, AXA signed up to the Finance Initiative section of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP FI).

In connection with the UNEP FI, AXA has contributed to the creation of the new insurance Working Group, bringing several leading insurers together in order to look into how to incorporate sustainable development issues into the heart of the insurance business. AXA hosted this Working Group's first meeting in March 2006 with a view to actively preparing for the implementation of its program for 2007. AXA was then elected to co-chair the Insurance Working Group and has actively contributed to the drafting of its first publication : "Insuring for Sustainability : Why and how the leaders are doing it" (May 2007).. AXA is also an active member of the climate change and real estate working groups.

Attentive to the consequences of climate change, and as a major global investor, AXA pays great importance to building awareness in the businesses in which it invests, as well as the risks and opportunities linked to the impact of carbon emissions on the climate. Providing the market and investors with the best possible information represents another objective shared with the CDP.

The CDP represents an opportunity for businesses to improve their operations by reducing their carbon footprint and protecting themselves against a certain number of related risks. As an insurer, the Group is committed to preventing risks, helping its clients to prevent them and, by doing so, understand them more clearly.

AXA has supported the Carbon Disclosure Project since 2003, taking part in a survey conducted by the CDP based on a questionnaire sent out to the top 500 listed companies. AXA, as part of the FTSE 500, completes the CDP questionnaire since 2003. In October 2005, the findings from the third CDP survey were presented for the first time in France, at AXA's head office.

In October 2007, the CDP, AXA, BNP Paribas Asset Management and the ADEME (Agence De l'Environnement et de la Maîtrise de l'Energie - French Environment and Energy Management Agency) jointly funded the SBF 120 survey, presenting their findings at AXA's head office. The SBF 120 review, which was conducted for the second time in France on the country's 120 leading corporations, assesses the risks and opportunities associated with climate change and global warming for businesses. The findings of the second CDP information request in France reflect the efforts made by companies to improve the quality of disclosures on their strategy and their management of the carbon constraint. In spite of this progress, French companies must nonetheless make further efforts to improve the clarity and transparency of their disclosures to catch up with the quality of information on the financial stakes of climate change which are observed in the English-speaking countries.

AXA is a founding member of ORSE (France), a not-for-profit organization established under the French Act of 1901, whose role is to gather, analyze and publish information, documentation and research on corporate social responsibility and socially responsible investment in France and abroad.

AXA is also part of a taskforce looking at non-financial ratings for businesses, and is active in the ORSE Finance Club and the ORSE Sustainable Development Club.

AXA is a founding member of Entreprise pour l'Environnement (EpE), a not-for-profit organization set up in 1992 to promote more effective environmental protection management through open discussion with all stakeholders, aimed at encouraging more rational decision-making and setting clear priorities. AXA is involved in several of this organization's taskforces.

An association set up in 1986 by Claude Bébéar, AXA's founder and the current Chairman of its Supervisory Board, and a group of business leaders, the Institut du mécénat social-Entreprendre pour la Cité is made up of more than 130 businesses that are committed to partnerships with community stakeholders focused on sustainable development. Its mission involves helping businesses incorporate innovative community policies, based on partnerships with other community players, into their corporate social responsibility policies.

IMS-Entreprendre pour la Cité encourages businesses to develop community policies that create value for the areas that they are located in, while paving the way for greater social equality. AXA is an active member of IMS-Entreprendre pour la Cité, taking part in several projects being carried out by this association, notably on diversity-related issues. IMS also supported the launch of the diversity charter signed by AXA France.