France: trade-unions need to boost ISR

77 billion dollars in salary savings and just 700 million for socially responsible investment : these figures are now under scrutiny for the trade-unions. The representatives of four main trade-unions involved in the salary savings Committee – known as the ?Comité intersyndical de l?épargne salariale – CIES? – agreed in a recent meeting at the French Senate on the necessity to perform better in the very next future. The ISR seen as a new means of influencing corporate behaviour in the area savings is in bad shape. To reach its objective, the CIES needs to use more efficiently its labelling mechanism and to launch new tenders in 2007. The trade-unions are also called to be more innovative in the field of social responsability criteria. Jean-Baptiste de Foucault, former high civil servant and now President of an NGO, suggests, for example, to create a fund to help unemployed people. It seems that the information and training process, especially inside the trade-unions, has been out of control, leading to the absence today of awareness campaigns towards investors and employees. www.orse.org