BIC - 2019 Universal Registration Document

OUR ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL, AND SOCIETAL RESPONSIBILITY

Societal benefits related to BIC ® products

3.6.2

PHILANTHROPIC ACTIONS BY BIC

Educational opportunities for girls and women Laboratoria (Latin America) aims to give women from underprivileged areas access to careers in computer technology. By targeting women, Laboratoria also seeks to promote gender equality in a largely male-dominated sector. In March 2019, the NGO celebrated its 1,000 th graduate with an international “hackathon” called #hackinginequality. In April 2019, Laboratoria opened its new training center in Mexico City. The BIC Corporate Foundation provides support for the further development of a six-month training program in computer coding that includes participation in projects carried out directly in the workplace, leading to recruitment by partner companies. Environmental education Nébéday (Senegal). In Senegal, a country where the current deforestation rate is the equivalent of 300 football fields every day, the association Nébéday seeks to promote the participative management of natural resources by and for the local communities through education and the responsible development of income-generating activities. The project backed by the BIC Corporate Foundation aims to improve environmental education in schools and raise awareness among children through a reforestation campaign. The project will be implemented in Fatick, a coastal region that is vulnerable to soil erosion and desertification. 3.6.1.2 In the learning process, writing by hand is a basic skill that helps structure the thought process. For this reason, writing instruments are indispensable tools for advancing the improvement of learning conditions. In recent years, BIC teams have taken action to support and facilitate handwriting and promote its importance in children’s development, especially through: initiatives in schools in a number of countries (Côte d’Ivoire, ● Ghana, Morocco, South Africa, Cameroon, Egypt, Spain, India, Morocco, Nigeria, the Philippines, etc.) such as: building awareness of the importance of education and writing, the production of written materials or workshops to offer teachers resources that they can use in class; for the second time in 2019, a special week was dedicated to ● education. Called “BIC Global Education Week” (November 5-8), the event offered all BIC team members the opportunity to donate a day of their time to improving learning conditions in their local community; BIC Group inaugurated its first ever BIC Cello vocational ● training center in Karembeli, India. After 500 hours of training and an official exam, students were awarded a certificate. Two cohorts graduated during 2019 and all of them found jobs, at BIC or elsewhere. The third cohort is currently undergoing training. The course delivers a state-recognized diploma and is approved by Center for Entrepreneur Development, Gujarat Govt. Perspectives ❯ In 2020, BIC will pursue its efforts, continuing to work with key people to promote successful education, as well as pupils and students, teachers and parents. Awareness and coaching actions

AND ITS SUBSIDIARIES

Challenges and opportunities ❯ The philanthropic actions of BIC and its subsidiaries can take three forms: the donation of products, monetary gifts and volunteer work/skills sponsorship. BIC and its subsidiaries favor operations that benefit local populations near its sites. Approach ❯ Each year, BIC develops and markets charity-linked products, some of which are useful in education. For the consumer, these products offer the possibility of spending the same amount of money while making a humanitarian gesture, because part of the purchase price is donated to a charitable organization. The organization in turn can diversify its funding sources and benefit from additional publicity. And for BIC, it is an opportunity to underline the Group’s civic commitment and boost sales. In Morocco, BIC launched its second BiblioBIC in 2019 as part of an initiative to renovate libraries in order to give schoolchildren and older students spaces conducive to studying, learning and knowledge expansion. In keeping with its commitment to promote education, BIC East Africa worked in Kenya with the association Carolina for Kibera to donate BIC ® pens and BIC ® Evolution Red pencils to 171 schools, for the benefit of more than 59,000 underprivileged students in Kibera, Nairobi’s largest shantytown. In 2019, BIC South Africa renewed its large-scale “Buy a Pen, Donate a Pen” charity products campaign. South Africa is a country that faces enormous educational challenges: more than 2 million of its citizens are illiterate and its unemployment rate exceeds 27%. For this campaign, for each product purchased, BIC South Africa donates one pen to the NGO READ Educational Trust, which distributes them to underprivileged children. As in previous years, the operation was a huge success, with 1.5 million pens once again donated, bringing the overall total to 10 million pens in seven years. In the United States, BIC is a national sponsor of the Kids In Need Foundation, a non-profit organization whose goal is give every child the opportunity to learn and succeed in school, providing school supplies free of charge to those most in need. For the 16 million children living in conditions of extreme poverty, obtaining school supplies can be a determining factor in their future success. Every year, KINF helps more than 200,000 teachers and 6.2 million pupils in the U.S. In its 23 years of existence, KINF has distributed more than 1 billion U.S. dollars (in retail value) worth of school supplies to children who have no other way to obtain them. In India, BIC Cello launched in September 2018, ‘Cello Write-to-Win’, a school initiative aimed at promoting a healthy attitude towards learning and education. The stress and fear of school failure can often adversely affect children’s social, emotional and academic success. The ‘Cello Write-to-Win’ program has been designed to train students to use handwriting as a tool to learn more efficiently and help them manage the stress levels that come with exams. Since its launch last year, the program has impacted almost 4 million students across India.

114

• BIC GROUP - 2019 UNIVERSAL REGISTRATION DOCUMENT •