Our CSR commitments

Acting for a positive future. Our CSR ambitions fit squarely with our philosophy and our purpose “raison d'être”. They are set out in our roadmap and centered around three key priorities.

Our raison d'être - “Building a Positive Future” - means we play a central role in addressing the challenges of climate change and the energy transition.

We believe in a more positive future where nature and mobility find their balance, where the environment and technology coexist in harmony, and where people and progress are durably reconciled.

These strong convictions lie at the core of our identity and our CSR vision.

Fostering a holistic approach

Our CSR vision takes into account the climatic, environmental and societal challenges that we face as an industrial and economic player and social actor.

Overseen by the Executive Committee and under the direct responsibility of an Executive Committee member, our CSR policy is centered around three priorities :

• Being a front-runner and setting an example when it comes to environmental issues and tackling climate change,
• Being a responsible employer,
• Having a positive impact on local communities.

Being a front-runner and setting an example when it comes to environmental issues and tackling climate change

Reducing our carbon footprint and embracing the principles of the circular economy are central to our commitment. We are working to develop high-performance fuel cell solutions for mobility without CO₂ emissions, microparticles and noise pollution.

We are also committed to exemplary industrial practices, and are aiming, in particular, to achieve the following targets by 2025:

• net zero emissions scope 1 and 2 initially,
• maximizing the use of recyclable and recycled components. We aim to use 95%  recyclable components,
• sovereignty in terms of the supply of critical materials, particularly platinum, with an active contribution to the development of platinum recycling channels, regionally.

SymphonHy, a reference site

In 2023, we opened one of Europe's largest fuel cell stack and system production sites in Saint-Fons. Called SymphonHy, its Breeam 'Very Good' environmental performance is intended to serve as a benchmark for all our future production sites, meeting two ambitions:

• being carbon-neutral (in line with our ambition to become Net Zero Carbon from 2025 on scopes 1 and 2),
• being energy self-sufficient.

Hence, SymphonHy, which has been certified Breeam "Very Good”, is equipped with:

• photovoltaic panels, 
• a heat exchange loop integrating the heating network and the cooling circuit,
• 10 million kWh/year of waste heat recovery systems,
• a system for recovering electrical energy from the fuel cell test benches. This electricity will be fed back into the site for self-consumption.

Being a responsible employer

Our talents are our most valuable asset. We are committed to growing their potential and ensuring their development.

We make safety a priority at all times.

The safety of our employees is central to our organization and our processes.We strive to maintain a safe working environment, based on the strictest standards.

Safety is therefore an essential component of the induction process for our new recruits and is the subject of regular training. In 2022, each employee received an average of 12.9 hours of safety training, and we run regular safety campaigns to raise awareness and anticipate risk situations.

We are convinced that safety is a collective commitment, which is why we have also incorporated our Group's safety objectives into our profit sharing compensation schemes.

Our aim is to become a market benchmark in this area and to achieve the highest standards, starting with a target of fewer than four accidents/million hours worked (with and without lost time) by 2025.

We engage our employees in our collective success

We want to create a motivating and secure working environment for our employees that stimulates performance, promotes talent development and fosters collective success.

Our OneSymbio culture aims at catalyzing positive energy, leveraging the know-how and participation of all the Group’s employees, rendering our organization thrilling, ever more effective and efficient. In this way, we transform our cultural wealth, the diversity of our expertise and the commitment of our employees into collective successes that enable us to go further together every day.

Every employee has the opportunity to train and develop, thanks to the Symbio Hydrogen Academy, a Qualiopi-certified training organization. The Symbio Academy is a pioneer in the field of hydrogen training, including for all the industry’s players. The aim is to develop 140 training modules available by 2024.

Every year, we measure the engagement of our employees through a survey, a holistic barometer of our organization, sent out to all Group employees. Deployed since 2021, we target to reach a 75% engagement rate by 2025.

Having a positive impact on local communities

We care about all our stakeholders and strive to be a constructive and committed player. We want to reconcile people and progress and promote the potential of science.

We are committed to nurturing fair and ethical relations with our customers, suppliers and the communities around our sites and beyond.

Supporting skill-building in the hydrogen industry

The Symbio Hydrogen Academy was created to train our teams and partners in the Hydrogen technology and its challenges. We welcome young people and job seekers, as well as professionals working in the automotive and chemical industries, who want to learn about the potential in the hydrogen industry, particularly true with our customers. Profiles range from operators to engineers and researchers.

We are co-developing training programs with French schools and universities and are in the process of internationalizing the concept, starting with the USA. The Symbio Hydrogen Academy will have trained 5,000 people in the Hydrogen domain, internally and externally, over the 5-year period 2021-2025. By the end of 2023, more than 1,100 people had followed courses on H2 Safety and Fuel Cell technology.

Find out more about the Symbio Hydrogen Academy

Encouraging corporate citizenship

Since 2023, every Symbio employee is encouraged to take part in the Group’s Citizen Day that we organize at all our sites. As part of this Symbio Citizen Day, everyone may choose to devote one working day to environmental or inclusive social initiatives selected locally and in line with our ESG approach. Our objective? To get at least 50% of our workforce involved by 2025.