The 3-dimensional statement ??????

A company needs a document that summarizes its situation in order to make good decisions. This document should be a snapshot of the company, a picture of sorts that says “here is who we are and where we’re currently standing”. It helps the leadership decide what direction to take.?

Historically, this document has been the balance sheet. It gives an overview of the company’s financial position.

A balance sheet (fictional example)

This document (along with other financial documents) can be used as a basis for discussion: how is the company doing, what should we do, etc. The discussion is mainly focused on these financial data.

However, although financial documents show the company’s viability, they do not give any context about other concerns that are as important, like the company’s social and environmental statements. We have realized that managing a company only from a financial point of view can lead to social and environmental disasters. A company can be very profitable and very well managed while dreadfully polluting the planet.?

The problem comes from the fact that there is no real standard to draw up a statement on social and environmental aspects. There are things like BCorp, which I recently mentioned (and impact.gouv.fr in France since recently), but it is still quite far from the maturity of financial standards.

Consider a financial balance sheet: its structure is clear, there are norms, international norms (even those sometimes differ). Whereas for social and environmental statements, everyone designs them as they prefer, to show the company in the best possible light. Here is how social-washing and greenwashing happen.

What does OpenClassrooms do?

OpenClassrooms is a mission-driven company; its mission is a social one: make education accessible. Its impact is employment-based: we measure the number of employment opportunities we manage to create. Our goal is to help 1 million students around the world to find a job in 2025.?

But OpenClassrooms, like any company, also has an environmental impact, whether we want it or not. We are not a “green tech” company but we have a responsibility. That is the reason why we are starting to measure our footprint: what do our very business trips produce, and, even more, what about our servers?

OpenClassrooms’s carbon footprint is measured according to a precise protocol (source: Quantis)

As far as OpenClassrooms is concerned, most of our emissions are within scope 3, i.e. indirect emissions. This requires precise study, to compare free students (taking courses), paying students (studying paths) and consider their usage, etc.

This work has been carried out by Quantis and we now have the first results. Without giving all details, as it is still a little early, we can already draw a first element of conclusion: what causes the most emission of carbon dioxide is watching our videos.

Most OpenClassrooms’s CO2 emissions come from watching videos (source: Quantis)

What’s next?

This is only a first step, though an important one: we now have a first measure of our impact. There is still a lot of work to do.?

We know that videos are resource-consuming. We can try to optimize the bandwidth, avoid auto-launch, etc. So we’re going to have a closer look at this.?

Taking a step back, one question is playing on our minds: is it better for the planet to take courses online or on-site? We don’t have the answer yet: on the one hand, students and teachers commute far less, but on the other hand, there are much more servers. We have the feeling that online training has less impact on the environment, but this remains to be proven.?

However, we have a conviction, anyway: we want to contribute to our carbon neutrality. This means that each student’s diploma needs to be carbon-neutral in the future. To do so, we need to reduce our impact but also to fund projects with a positive impact on the environment. This will mechanically diminish our financial margin, but this is a compromise we have to make. We have a responsibility.?

At a later stage, we aspire to reach a reporting Grail. Instead of only drawing up a financial balance sheet, we would combine:

• a financial statement: what is our financial health?
• a social statement: what is our impact on employment?
• an environmental statement: what is our impact on the planet?

This should give a more thorough and fairer overview of a company like OpenClassrooms. The path to get there might be long, but we are looking forward to it!

Thanks to Karine Le Moigne for helping me with the translation