BIC - 2018 Registration document

OUR ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL, AND SOCIETAL RESPONSIBILITY

Environmental responsibility concerning our operations [NFPS]

in Brazil, the Manaus site began sourcing wind energy in 2018 ● through the purchase of iREC certificates. This factory, which combines all three BIC ® product categories, produces about 1 billion products per year for the South American market; in India, the Group invested for the first time in the installation ● of photovoltaic solar panels (15 kW), installed on the roof of one of its eight factories in the country. In addition, the Group continues to purchase certificates in other regions and conducts opportunity studies for other renewable energy supplies: in the United States, the purchase of renewable wind energy ● certificates (U.S. RECs) has covered the electrical power needs of the Shelton headquarters and the factory in Milford since 2012. This means that the lighters manufactured in the U.S. are produced using renewable electricity; in Greece, purchased GoO certificates cover all of the ● electrical consumption of the BIC Violex site since 2016. The BIC Group’s use of renewable energy allows it to promote the development of these energy sources in the countries where it operates, thus reducing its market-based (scope 2) indirect emissions  (1) . BIC estimates that the use of renewable electricity in its operations will contribute to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 50% by 2025. Optimizing energy consumption Many industrial sites forge partnerships with their suppliers to explore all options for reducing electrical consumption. BIC constantly strives to strike a balance in its factories between optimal productivity and associated energy needs. For example, the Group has implemented a program to replace hydraulic injection machines with more energy-efficient electrical machines. Energy consumption per ton of production slightly increased between 2017 and 2018 (+1.3%), caused by increased needs for air conditioning and heating due to weather conditions and to quality requirements of production processes. By normalizing energy consumption to production, the measure of energy efficiency is less dependent on fluctuations in production volumes. However, it is important to note that: a portion of energy consumption, for building heating or ● lighting for example, cannot be entirely correlated to production, mainly because it depends on external events (climatic conditions for instance); the ratio per ton of production is a more relevant measure for ● BIC Group activities with high levels of production (which is not the case for office activities, product storage and packaging or for advertising and promotional product printing);

the gross indicators are disclosed on page 119 as additional ● information. Nine industrial sites improved their ratio of energy consumption per ton of production in 2018. These sites represent 19% of the Group’s energy consumption and 23% of the production of finished and semi-finished products, having improved their energy efficiency by 12%. For example, BIC Amazonia (Brazil) achieved a 9% reduction in its energy consumption per ton of production thanks to the installation of new machinery for the Shavers category and new LED lighting. Energy efficiency programs at Group sites also included the installation of more efficient machinery, the optimization of lighting towards more efficient solutions and the awareness-raising among employees. More specifically, in 2018, energy consumption at the three main offices – Clichy (France), Shelton (U.S.) and Cajamar (Brazil) – totaled 0.65 GJ/m 2 . This performance represents a nearly 3% improvement in comparison with 2017, in particular due to the closing down of BIC Graphic operations in Cajamar. Since the main BIC offices are equipped with servers, the sustainable development approach adopted by the IT support departments has a direct impact on the sites’ environmental footprint. After several years of effort on this issue: the virtualization of the Group’s internal and external servers ● has now reached the optimal level of about 80%. This gradual conversion has made it possible to reduce the number of machines and to use increasingly efficient equipment, thus reducing the amount of energy needed for cooling; in 2017, the Group finalized the implementation of its ● “Software as a Service” strategy: the applications shared by users Group-wide are installed in the “cloud,” i.e. on virtual servers that are externalized, mutualized and configured for automatic standby. To guarantee data security, service providers with ISO 27001 certification are chosen for externalized “cloud” storage; the specifications for the renewal of the workstations ● incorporate two sustainable development guidelines: the quality of the suppliers’ sustainable development approach and the energy efficiency of the equipment. The difference in energy consumption between the old and new workstations is estimated at approximately 20%; since 2013, in the Europe and Middle East-Africa zones, 100% ● of the employees who use a computer (some 4,000 in all) have been equipped with “Skype for Business,” a set of solutions for remote collaboration.

There are two ways to account for indirect (scope 2) emissions: a location-based method reflecting the average electricity mix of grids in each (1) country in which energy consumption occurs, and a market-based method reflecting emissions from electricity that companies have actually bought.

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• BIC GROUP - 2018 REGISTRATION DOCUMENT •