Decathlon Commits To Preserving Biodiversity
With the launch of its biodiversity project, Decathlon has signed up to the 10 principles of the “Act4nature” France initiative.
This strategy from the French government brought together 38 businesses in December 2019 so that they could sign up to a continuous improvement scheme to help preserve biodiversity. This commitment follows on from the initial efforts conducted by Decathlon at its St Malo and Lorient stores, two projects where biodiversity is incorporated right from the construction phase, earning it the Signature Biodiversité accreditation.
The business has also decided to join the multi-stakeholder association ORÉE, advisors at both national and international level. By becoming a member of this network of experts, Decathlon teams will be able to access upskilling support in the field of biodiversity.
“Signing the ten Act4nature France principles and joining ORÉE are first steps for Decathlon. This will boost our awareness of how biodiversity is being eroded, along with the ecosystem services it provides. These services help us every day to fulfil our purpose: “To sustainably make the pleasure and benefits of sport accessible to the many”. For us, this is the beginning of a long-term policy, to transform Decathlon to make sport and exercise compatible with a resilient biodiversity drive.”
Antoine Lablée, Biodiversity project manager
The 10 Principles of the "Act4Nature" France Initiative
- Integrating biodiversity into our corporate strategy, founding our action on available scientific knowledge;
- Engaging in dialogue with all our stakeholders regarding their expectations and our impacts, actions and progress;
- Assessing the various components of biodiversity of concern to us, using direct and indirect impact indicators, risk and performance indicators and, when relevant for decision making purposes, assessing in economic terms our impacts and our reliance on smoothly functioning ecosystems;
- Promoting the progressive integration of biological diversity into decisions throughout our value chains, from the production of natural raw materials to the final stage of our products life cycle after use by consumers;
- Primarily preventing, reducing and ultimately offsetting our impacts, by seeking on a case-by-case basis no net loss as a bottom line and even a net gain of biodiversityin our activities and geographical areas of influence, and by factoring in the need for ecosystems to adapt to climate change;
- Giving priority to the development of Nature-based Solutions, ensuring that they are imple- mented in a science-based and biodiversity-friendly manner, and promoting a certain variety in such solutions;
- Incorporating biodiversity into our dialogue with policymakers so that this issue is progressively embedded into public policies. When invited to do so, contributing to the national biodiversity strategies of countries where we operate;
- Raising awareness of and train our employees in biodiversity and its relation to their jobs. Promo- ting and encouraging nature- friendly initiatives by them and providing due recognition to such actions and practices;
- Mobilising resources and establishing appropriate partnerships to support and monitor our actions taken in the field;
- Publicly reporting on the implementation of these commitments and of our individual commit- ments set out below.
Hélène Leriche, Head of Biodiversity and economy at ORÉE
“Biodiversity is the living world that we are all attached to and that links us all together. Decathlon customers are particularly sensitive to it, being those who want to kit themselves out in order to discover new horizons as suggested in visuals communicated by the business. Decathlon’s commitment to biodiversity should also help to train all of its partners and its value chain. It’s important to work on this biodiversity issue with others. The long history of the living world, which we are learning to understand a little more each day, along with its interactions and co-developments, proves that together we are stronger, and that we are always wiser when we collaborate, in terms of both diversity and complementarity of viewpoints and skills.”
A multi-stakeholder association founded in 1992, ORÉE has existed for more than 20 years as a means to bring together and coordinate those working to establish an environmental biodiversity drive. ORÉE currently boasts a 180-strong network including businesses, public bodies, professional and environmental associations, academic and institutional bodies, etc., for whom it provides support and organisational tools.
