Sustainable development

Equinox Consulting has been gradually building its sustainable development strategy over the past three years. The firm’s efforts have focused on the three pillars of sustainable development: people (social responsibility), the planet (environmental responsibility), and profits (economic responsibility).

Social responsability

Equinox Consulting has signed the Diversity Charter, and the firm’s hiring and assessment procedures now include policies to ensure equal opportunity regardless of ethnic background or gender. We also ask any outside recruiters we use to adhere to the Equal Opportunity Charter in their candidate selection and presentation processes.

We also completed a Great Place To Work® audit, achieving a ranking of 13 in France. Our management practices, which focus on individual needs for issues like working hours, parental leave, and training, earned particular kudos. We also strongly encourage personal development through initiatives like sponsoring cultural activities and personal projects, providing time and stress management training, encouraging our employees to engage in volunteer work, and offering first-aid training.

Our human resource management indicators include seniority, age, nationality, number of applications received, number of resignations, absenteeism, occupational injuries, and training.

Environmental responsibility

Equinox Consulting completed a simplified carbon footprint audit using the ADEME (the French government’s environment and energy agency) method. This enabled the firm to identify major sources of energy consumption and set three priorities for reducing consumption:

We also developed a consumables scorecard to track our paper, printer cartridge, and plastic cup orders; our consumables spending; our electrical consumption in kilowatt-hours; and our water consumption in liters and the cost per liter of the water we do consume.

Equinox Consulting has also partnered with APR2 for the pickup and recycling of electrical and electronic items like batteries, cartridges, and computer equipment at the end of their lifecycle. APR2 has developed exemplary human resources management practices that entail supporting families and the disabled through programs designed to help them enter and stay in the workforce.

Economic responsibility

We have also placed microfinance at the heart of our sustainable development strategy, with projects targeting personal and business microloans in France and peer-to-peer lending models linking countries in the north with those in the south. We have held several events enabling microfinance professionals and concerned individuals to learn more about the mechanisms currently available. We also support nonprofit organizations that share our approach to CSR or that our employees have elected to support. We have been a sponsor of Babyloan.org since October 2008.

Another one of our economic initiatives is the development partnership we set up with Morocco-based charity Darnand when we went to Dar El Jamaa for our 2008 annual employee seminar. Darnand was founded in 2002 in the rural community of Amizmiz in Dar El Jamaa and brings together residents from different douars (villages) who want to implement projects to improve their living conditions. The association works to achieve progress by:

Equinox Consulting funded work completed in August and September 2008, including renovating the interior and exterior of the existing school buildings, securing a clean drinking water supply, building restrooms, terracing the yard, and landscaping. The entire team of consultants from Equinox pitched in to finish the work in September, completing the painting and landscaping and decorating the classrooms.

Equinox Consulting now purchases office supplies from Le Juste Milieu.
Le Juste Milieu is a volunteer organization that helps the disabled enter the workforce by supporting appropriate training programs. The organization, which runs a special center for disabled workers, funds its programs by selling a range of office and cleaning supplies and offers printing services.
Le Juste Milieu also works with businesses that wish to hire disabled workers, raise employee awareness of disability, and improve disabled access to their facilities.