BIC_REGISTRATION_DOCUMENT_2017

OUR ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL, AND SOCIETAL RESPONSIBILITY Our societal responsibility

Further bolstering its commitment to promoting education, in 2017 BIC Group created the position of Education Commitment Director, in order to consolidate its historical approach and step up its involvement. The BIC Corporate Foundation The BIC Corporate Foundation was born out of the Group’s desire to promote its civic activities and structure its philanthropic approach while bolstering its employees’ sense of pride and belonging. Its mission is to support access to education, putting the emphasis, over the long term, on the funding of social entrepreneurship and innovation in education. It focuses on two main fields, namely reducing the school dropout rate and promoting equal access to education for boys and girls, as well as the advancement of environmental education. The BIC Corporate Foundation Board of Directors consists of nine members, six from BIC Group plus three external experts: Runa Khan, founder and President of the NGO Friendship; ● Marine de Bazelaire, Managing Director of the HSBC Foundation ● for Education; Jean-Marc Guesné: General Manager of the Ashoka France ● network. The Foundation’s accomplishments in its two first years of operation include: the funding of a school on the banks the Brahmaputra River in ● northern Bangladesh, with six classes benefiting 180 pupils; the funding of three AFEV regional bases in France, aiding the ● association’s local involvement in Brest, Reims and Bordeaux, in addition to its historical partnership; the signing of a partnership with Solidarités International for an ● educational program on the protection of water resources in a water stress zone; the contribution of funds to match Group employees’ donations to ● a “BIC Citizens in Action” program backing a project by the NGO Life Project 4 Youth to build an educational center in India; the launch of an internal call for projects among BIC Group ● subsidiaries. The six winning projects, selected by a panel of 11 people representing various categories, continents and functions, will receive support from the BIC Corporate Foundation. Awareness and coaching actions 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, a considerable amount of work has been done by BIC teams to support handwriting and its importance in children’s development, especially through: the launch and development of the BIC® Kids range, created in ● cooperation with psychomotor specialists, ergonomists and teachers specifically to help prepare children to learn handwriting, in particular the proper way to hold and use writing instruments;

ECONOMIC IMPACT STUDY ON THE BIC FACTORY D IN MANAUS (BRAZIL)

A pilot study conducted in 2004, and discussed in detail in the BIC Group 2005 Sustainable Development Report, provides a better understanding of the impact of the activities of a BIC site on the local economy in a developing country. The findings showed that in the city of Manaus, which is located in a very remote region (the Amazon) where industry is concentrated in just a few sectors, only a quarter of the site’s expenditures remained locally in Manaus, with the remaining expenditures going to the rest of Brazil and foreign countries. In terms of employment, the study showed that each direct job at BIC Amazonia generated up to three local jobs and indirectly supported as many as 10 people just in the city of Manaus. Since 2004, Brazil has opened its economy to more foreign investment and improved its economic and transportation infrastructures. As a result, the findings of this study would no doubt be somewhat different today, but Manaus remains a remote, isolated site. Promoting quality education 2.5.2.2. for all Challenges ♦ The UN sustainable development Goal no. 4 is “to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and to promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.” It underscores the two key challenges concerning education, namely: Access to education. Today, 12% of all school-age children do not ● have access to primary or secondary education; Equality in education. Today, educational opportunities depend ● on the children’s place of residence, gender and the parents’ socioeconomic status. 250 million children worldwide are unable to acquire a sufficient level of basic educational skills (reading, writing, and counting). Approach and progress made in 2017 ♦ Through its activities of designing, manufacturing and distributing writing instruments, BIC Group has long been involved in the promotion of education. Firmly convinced that education is crucial for the development of free will and independence, and to combat poverty, BIC has in particular been an active advocate of writing by hand, even before its importance in the structuring of children’s thought processes was proven. The Group acts through three channels: actions undertaken by the BIC Corporate Foundation; ● philanthropic actions (donations of products, funding and skills) ● undertaken by local entities for the benefit of their communities (detailed in section 2.5.2.3 below); coaching actions to help improve learning conditions, including ● awareness of the benefits of writing by hand in the learning and memorization processes.

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BIC GROUP - 2017 REGISTRATION DOCUMENT