2024 Integrated Report

Exercising our duty of care

The Bouygues group is intent on preventing serious infringements of human rights and fundamental freedoms and safeguarding its personnel and the environment. Bouygues’ vigilance plan contains measures to identify and prevent serious violations that could result from Bouygues’ operations, and from those of the subcontractors or suppliers with which the Group and its business segments have an established business relationship.

Ongoing roll-out of the new-look method for drawing up the vigilance plan

In 2023, the Group reviewed the method used to draw up its vigilance plan. It was assisted in this work by a consulting firm. The Group continued rolling out this new-look method in 2024.

The third-party risk-mapping method, which is applicable across the Group’s six business segments, is based on a common framework comprising seven overarching categories of risk relating to human rights abuses, violations of fundamental freedoms, risks to health and safety, and risks to the environment.

Some business segments have fine-tuned this approach to make it more appropriate to the nature of their business activities, mapping up to 11 different types of risk. For each of these categories, the first step was to calculate the gross risk arising from the business segments’ activities and operations, and from their major purchasing categories, based on several risk factors such as geographical location, the complexity of activities and supply chains, and the use of vulnerable workers.

The extent to which these risks were under control was then assessed, taking into account the full range of prevention and mitigation measures applied by the business segments.

In 2024, special attention was paid to the roll-out of action plans by the business segments.

Governance of the vigilance plan

The content of the Group’s vigilance plan is based on contributions from business segment committees comprising representatives of their respective CSR, Legal, Purchasing, Human Resources, Health & Safety, and Internal Audit and Control departments. “Environment”, “Responsible Purchasing”, “Health & Safety”, “Sustainable Development” and “Sustainability” committees were also involved.

The vigilance plan is also reviewed and endorsed by each business segment’s executive body (on matters within their remit), by the Bouygues group’s senior management, by the Ethics, CSR and Patronage Committee, and by Bouygues’ Board of Directors.

Prevention and mitigation measures

As a result of the continued overhaul of the method used to draw up the vigilance plan, existing prevention and mitigation measures have been toughened and new actions have been introduced.

Publication of the Human Rights Policy

The Bouygues group now has a Human Rights Policy^a which aims to reassert its long-standing commitment to respect for people – one of the Group’s core values. The policy is intended to guide the actions of all those who work for and with Bouygues throughout the world.

The Group firmly believes that respect for human rights is integral to its long-term future because it inspires the confidence of its internal and external stakeholders. For this reason, Bouygues has enshrined this principle in its Code of Ethics and has undertaken various human rights-related initiatives, including becoming a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact in 2006.

The Human Rights Policy outlines the Group’s stance on the protection of human rights and establishes a common core of 12 commitments. In doing so, it addresses the expectations of the Group’s stakeholders.

Bouygues also has a CSR Charter for Suppliers and Subcontractors.

Whistleblowing facility

As mentioned previously, the Group has set up a corporate whistleblowing facility to report and process all whistleblowing alerts, including those relating to its duty of care obligations. This facility is described in the Group’s Code of Ethics. It is accessible to all and guarantees the strict confidentiality of the whistleblower’s identity, the identity of the person(s) implicated in the alert, and the confidentiality of all related information.