This is the home stretch for the 2021 edition of the Victories for Sustainable Growth.
With this award, the CroissancePlus association of entrepreneurs, KPMG, BNP Paribas and
Le Figaro
each year distinguish a company that combines economic performance and positive impact.
To discover
OUR SIMULATOR - Are you getting paid well?
The victories of sustainable growth are based on a double conviction.
On the one hand, France has the capacity to grow SMEs and start-ups which will become mid-size companies,
“scale ups”
.
On the other hand, this growth can be virtuous and responsible.
Applications for this 2021 edition were open to independent companies, generating at least 10 million euros in turnover and whose annual growth has been at least 10% over the last three closed financial years.
The jury, made up of representatives of the four organizers, the previous winner and qualified personalities, met on May 28 to select the finalists.
On June 29, they will be present during the evening which will be broadcast live on lefigaro.fr.
Everyone will make a pitch to defend their business.
At the end of these presentations, the 2021 winner of the Victories for Sustainable Growth will be elected by the jury and by Internet users who will be able to take part in the vote.
With EcoVadis, Pierre-François Thaler and Frédéric Trinel sign one of the great entrepreneurial successes of recent years. Created in 2007, the global CSR performance assessment platform is now used by 65,000 companies in 165 countries. Last year, its fundraising of 180 million euros was one of the largest in France. By force of circumstances, EcoVadis must be in line with the evaluation grid that it offers to its customers. The company deploys a set of measures: carbon footprint calculation and compensation, supplier code of conduct, diversity and inclusion audit. In 2020, EcoVadis achieved a turnover of 45 million, compared to 21 million in 2017.
It was in 1985, in Lyon, that Jean-Michel Bérard founded Esker to develop document dematerialization software. In 2001, the company branched out onto its current path, publishing solutions for managing relationships with customers and suppliers (ordering, invoicing, payment, etc.). Listed in Paris, the company is valued at 1.3 billion euros. It employs more than 700 people and serves 6,000 customers in 50 countries.
"ESG is something that we take into account in a very significant way",
Emmanuel Olivier, Managing Director, explained during the presentation of the 2020 annual results. Among the elements of this CSR policy: parity on the supervisory board, ratio of the CEO's salary to the median salary of less than 10, a gender equality index of 91 out of 100, actions in favor of inclusion, partnership with Reforest'Action. The next step, currently being considered, could be to make the company a mission-driven enterprise. In 2020, Esker achieved a turnover of 112.3 million euros, compared to 76.1 million in 2017.
When he launched Gojob in 2015, Pascal Lorne already had a busy entrepreneurial life. He had participated in the creation of the mapping company Ismap, then he founded the mobile phone application start-up Miyowa in 2003. The company was sold in 2011 and, after a hiatus, Pascal Lorne decided to tackle the nagging problem of unemployment in its own way with Gojob, a digital temping platform.
"The only important things are know-how, knowing how to be and the desire to work",
he explained to
Le Figaro.
during the creation of the company. In partnership with the École Polytechnique, Gojob has developed an algorithm which, for people excluded from employment, eliminates discriminatory biases. Currently, 350,000 people are registered on the platform used by 900 companies. From his experience, Pascal Lorne drew a book of proposals,
10 jours pour hacker le travail
(Public Debates). GoJob, which has adopted the status of social and solidarity enterprise (ESS), achieved 40.5 million euros in turnover in 2020, compared to 7 million in 2017.
At the beginning was the Diaper Without Endocrine Disruptors, launched in 2007 by the company Noo Corp under the brand Joone. The activity quickly expanded with organic hygiene and care products for babies and women. Consumer articles but produced with a double requirement of ethics and transparency which guide the founder, Carole Juge-Llewellyn. The company uses the blockchain so that its customers can, on their mobile phones, go up the entire production chain. They thus discover a network of mainly French suppliers. In the direction of her company, Carole Juge-Llewellyn is also attached to a management ethic by multiplying initiatives: issuance of BSPCE for all employees, professional equality between men and women,one-month paternity leave… Noo Corp, which employs around fifty people, achieved nearly 20 million euros in turnover compared to 250,000 in 2017.
It is one of those technological nuggets that the pandemic has battered. Socomore develops specialty chemicals solutions for aeronautics. The company, created in Vannes in 1972, was taken over by its current manager, Frédéric Lescure, in 1999. It employed around thirty people at the time. Supported by investment funds, it gave it its current size: Socomore, with 245 people, has established itself in ten countries while remaining anchored in Brittany. The plunge in the aeronautics industry during the health crisis led Frédéric Lescure to launch a second activity, the production of hydroalcoholic gel. To consolidate it, Socomore bought in January 2021 the Vosges company Salveco. Frédéric Lescure has thus preserved a company and its model: egalitarian incentive, RTT solidarity fund,sponsorship for employee projects ... The manager is also president of an association of company nurseries. In 2020, Socomore generated € 61.7 million in revenue, compared to € 55.6 million in 2017.
