Annual report 2014

Key Messages

Societal, Social and

Environmental

Information

working hours only, thus reducing the energy consumed for lighting

in the offices of GVT’s headquarters in Curitiba by 30%. Wishing

to integrate renewable energy into its energy mix, this year GVT

launched a large-scale project aimed at enabling approximately 900

small offices at the Parana facility to operate on solar energy;

managing electrical and electronic equipment:

parallel

with optimizing the supply and consumption of raw materials, the

group’s subsidiaries, UMG and GVT in particular, are attempting

to increase the proportion of waste recovered and to clarify with

employees which waste-to-energy process is suited to each type

of waste. In some units, waste is recycled in partnership with job

placement associations. GVT has developed its electronic equipment

repair services (set-top boxes, modems and gateways), limiting new

products placed on the market. As a direct result of this initiative,

more than 569,000 pieces of equipment have been repaired and then

reused,

controlling upstream impacts:

as part of an effort to offset

energy, Universal Music France has agreed to diversify its sources

of electrical supply by purchasing electricity from renewable

sources. Some subsidiaries of Canal+ Group are also working on this

diversification, in particular through the purchase of electrical energy

from hydropower sources in Asia and from photovoltaic energy in

Africa. Lastly, Vivendi has mapped the environmental challenges

facing its supply chain in order to measure and control the direct and

indirect effects (see below).

4.1.3.

Environmental Issues of Digital Technology

The group’s business units are offering their customers an ever-increasing

range of creative digital content and high-speed access services. In 2014,

for example, digital content accounted for more than 50% of total sales

of recorded music by Universal Music Group. UMG is diversifying access

to its content via digital platforms such as Vevo (a hosting service for

music videos that is 48% owned by UMG) or other platforms such as

Spotify and Deezer. Canal+ Group has also launched its offering on

major Internet distribution platforms such as YouTube in France, where

it offers 20 free channels, and Dailymotion in Canada, which it uses to

distribute video series, films and documentaries by subscription. Finally,

Canalplay ranks among the leaders of VOD by subscription in France, with

a subscriber base that has more than doubled in a year, reaching 600,000

by year-end 2014.

In this context of increasing digitalization, with the accompanying

explosion of new uses, a better grasp of the environmental footprint

of the digital world is needed. At the end of 2013, the CSR department

set up a committee to deal with the topic of “Energy consumption in

information and communications technologies (ICTs).” Bringing together

the legal and technical officers of Universal Music France, Canal+ and

Vivendi’s headquarters, as well as a sociologist and an expert from the

Audiovisual and Telecommunications Institute in Europe (IDATE), this

Committee has given rise to a number of productive discussions. The

representatives of the subsidiaries have applauded this initiative and

have demonstrated their desire to continue the committee’s brainstorming

efforts in order to better evaluate the environmental impact of the

different players along the value chain.

In order to examine this little explored topic in greater depth, in 2014 a

working group was set up and has held two working sessions. This has

enabled Vivendi to make an initial assessment of the status of its digital

supply chain at Universal Music and Studiocanal, in order to assess its

impact and determine what room existed for initiatives in this area. The

group hopes initially to establish measurement indicators with its main

suppliers. Following that, Vivendi plans to concentrate on its content

distribution chain.

Annual Report 2014