Driving Sustainable Impact: Wedia’s Path to Sustainability Recognized by EcoVadis

Wedia is committed to making its business more sustainable by focusing on social responsibility, ethical practices, and reducing its environmental impact. With guidance from its CSR charter, the company takes real steps to promote equity, transparency, and sustainability in its operations. Recognitions like the EcoVadis “Committed Company” badge and findings from the Diag Décarbon’Action report show Wedia’s progress and dedication. This article highlights the company’s key achievements, strategies, and goals for a more responsible future in the digital industry.

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Corporate Responsibility at Wedia: A Commitment That Drives Action

Wedia’s commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR) is driven by a clear and actionable charter. This framework outlines priorities in ethical business practices, sustainability, and inclusivity, serving as a foundation for implementing measurable and meaningful initiatives across the company’s operations.

Key actions include reducing carbon emissions, enhancing workplace equity, and promoting transparency through anti-corruption and ethics policies. These efforts reflect Wedia’s approach to integrating responsibility into its business practices, ensuring alignment with industry standards and stakeholder expectations.

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EcoVadis, a global leader in CSR evaluations, has acknowledged Wedia’s progress, reinforcing the impact of these initiatives. While this recognition adds value, Wedia’s focus remains on driving practical and sustainable improvements aligned with its CSR charter. Complementing this achievement, Wedia’s Diag Décarbon’Action report provides a detailed analysis of the company’s carbon footprint and highlights targeted actions to reduce emissions. Together, these assessments are benchmarks for Wedia’s responsible business practices and environmental impact.

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Interview with Pierre-Olivier Lescure, VP of Sales and CSR Officer at Wedia

To gain insight into Wedia’s approach to CSR and the significance of its recent sustainability milestones, we spoke with Pierre-Olivier Lescure, VP of Sales and CSR Officer. He shares how Wedia’s efforts contributed to its improved EcoVadis score, the insights from its Diag Décarbon’Action report, and what lies ahead in the journey toward more sustainable business practices.

1. To begin, could you share your thoughts on the value of EcoVadis and the Diag Décarbon’Action Report in guiding Wedia’s CSR and sustainability strategies?

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EcoVadis and the Diag Décarbon’Action Report are invaluable in guiding our CSR and sustainability strategies, each serving a distinct role. EcoVadis evaluates our performance across key areas—environment, social responsibility, ethics, and responsible procurement—using universal criteria that ensure a consistent and transparent assessment. This allows us to identify strengths and areas for improvement while aligning our operations with global sustainability standards.

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The Diag Décarbon’Action initiative, conducted in collaboration with a third-party specialist, focuses specifically on environmental impact. It helped Wedia establish a detailed carbon footprint and identify actionable steps to reduce emissions. Together, EcoVadis and Diag Décarbon’Action provide complementary insights, helping us define our commitments and integrate enhanced CSR criteria into our operations.

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These evaluations are also crucial in building trust with our clients. During tenders, many clients specifically request EcoVadis scores or sustainability reports to ensure their partners share their CSR values. Being recognized as a "committed company" reinforces Wedia’s reputation as a socially responsible organization and positions us as a leader in integrating sustainability into our business practices.

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Additionally, these assessments help Wedia foster closer partnerships with clients, particularly those contributing significantly to Scope 3 emissions. In fact, 85% of Wedia’s Scope 3 emissions are linked to the largest clients using its DAM solutions. By collaborating on data-driven sustainability strategies, Wedia enhances these partnerships while driving collective progress toward broader environmental and CSR goals.

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2. What key initiatives or strategies has Wedia implemented recently to strengthen its CSR practices and align with its sustainability goals?

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We’ve made steady progress in CSR through focused efforts to make sustainability a bigger part of our operations. Here are the key areas where we’ve improved:

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• CSR Commitments and Charters: Wedia introduced anti-corruption and ethics charters, promoting equity, inclusion, and transparency. Employees signed these charters, demonstrating collective responsibility.
• Responsible Procurement: While procurement remains challenging due to low bargaining power with major suppliers like Amazon, The Wedia Group, consisting of Wedia and Iconosquare, prioritized local purchases and reduced the use of non-recyclable materials.
• Improved Reporting and Actions: Enhanced reporting mechanisms and structured action plans contributed to the score increase.
• Carbon Footprint Measurement: For the first time, Wedia Group calculated its carbon footprint (1,248 tons of CO2 for 2023) and identified key improvement areas.

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3. The Diag Décarbon’Action report identified Wedia’s main sources of carbon emissions. What immediate actions is Wedia prioritizing to address these findings?

Wedia is committed to adopting an eco-conception methodology and reducing the carbon footprint intensity generated by its IT infrastructure. This includes recycling materials, optimizing storage by removing duplicates, fostering the use of efficient asset formats, promoting lower-resolution formats for non-essential assets, and decreasing analytics frequencies to save energy.

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In addition to these operational improvements, we have revised travel policies to encourage employees to avoid air travel for trips under five hours, favoring train travel instead. This policy is already contributing to measurable reductions in our travel-related emissions.

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These actions demonstrate Wedia’s focus on sustainability by targeting key improvement areas identified in the Diag Décarbon’Action report, with a strong emphasis on energy efficiency, digital sobriety, and measurable environmental impact reduction.

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4. EcoVadis evaluates companies across four main areas—environment, social responsibility, ethics, and procurement. Which has been most challenging, and how is Wedia addressing it?

“Procurement is the most challenging,” said Pierre-Olivier. Wedia's reliance on suppliers like Amazon and Microsoft means its direct influence on procurement practices is limited. These companies' efforts to actively reduce their carbon emissions align with Wedia’s broader sustainability goals. Additionally, the company is taking incremental steps, such as prioritizing local and eco-friendly purchases for events and office needs.

Social policies and ethics are more manageable as they are internally driven. Wedia has made significant progress in promoting salary equity, gender balance, and work-life harmony.

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5. What does earning the “Committed Company” badge mean for Wedia’s team and clients?

The badge reflects our commitment to CSR and serves as recognition of the efforts we’ve made across various areas. While it doesn’t specifically target carbon emissions, it validates the overall strength of our approach to sustainability. In line with this commitment, Wedia has supported the green charter for sustainable DAM defined and promoted by Activo, the French DAM/PIM consulting company. That said, clients value concrete actions and measurable results more than titles or labels, so our focus remains on delivering meaningful progress that aligns with their expectations.

6. Digital sobriety and eco-design are core to Wedia’s environmental goals. How do these principles shape your CSR initiatives?

Digital sobriety and eco-design are key to how we reduce our environmental impact. We’ve taken several steps to make our operations more energy-efficient:

• Reducing analytics runtime on Iconosquare to conserve energy.
• Encouraging clients to clean up their DAM platforms by removing unused or duplicate assets.
• Switching to more energy-efficient servers to lower overall consumption.
• Promoting lower-resolution formats for non-essential assets to cut down on storage requirements.
  
  While our digital operations naturally have a smaller footprint compared to manufacturing industries, the sheer scale of digital data use means we need to take proactive steps to minimize our environmental impact.

7. Finally, looking ahead, what are Wedia’s main goals for its next EcoVadis assessment?

For the next EcoVadis evaluation, our goal is to continue improving our CSR performance and push our score higher by focusing on key areas:

• Enhancing carbon footprint reporting, with a particular emphasis on Scope 3 emissions.
• Expanding the use of eco-friendly practices in procurement and IT infrastructure.
• Strengthening parity and inclusion initiatives within our workforce.
• Collaborating more closely with clients to help them reduce their carbon footprint through optimized DAM usage.
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Looking ahead, we aim to achieve significant progress over the next few years, with a long-term ambition to align with the highest standards as EcoVadis continues to refine its assessment criteria.

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We are committed to improving our carbon footprint, respecting ethics, and fostering responsibility in purchasing decisions. This journey is about continuous progress and meaningful change - Pierre-Olivier Lescure, Wedia’s Vice President of Sales and CSR Officer

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Looking Ahead: Wedia’s Commitment to Sustainable Growth

Wedia is dedicated to sustainability across all areas—environmental, social, ethical, and sustainable procurement. The Diag Décarbon’Action report highlights this progress and reinforces the company’s commitment to responsible practices.

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By focusing on reducing carbon emissions, improving workplace equity, promoting ethical behavior, and making sustainable procurement choices, Wedia ensures its growth is both responsible and impactful, setting an example in the digital industry.

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‍Discover Wedia’s CSR commitments and Book a Demo with Wedia today.