Supporting solidarity action

Since 2018, Wendel has extended its scope of action to include solidarity. In this approach, the Group’s employees were asked to present the associations in which they are personally involved. The Philanthropy Committee then selected the organizations most in line with Wendel’s values. In this way, associations working in France and the United States, the Group’s investment territories, received Wendel’s support.

These include the Helen Keller Europe association, which works to combat blindness and malnutrition. Since 2018, Wendel has been supporting the Plan Vue program, whose mission is to raise awareness, identify and treat vision disorders in schools. The Group is also mobilized alongside the Protection Civile Paris Seine. This partnership has resulted in the financing of the renovation of a first aid vehicle for the branch in the 11th arrondissement of Paris. With the new vehicle in service, the association’s volunteer first-aid workers will be able to increase the number of their interventions and respond to more requests.

In 2020, in response to the economic and health crisis that has greatly weakened charitable organizations, the Group had reiterated all of these partnerships. In addition, as a personal gesture of solidarity, the members of the Executive Board and Supervisory Board had decided to waive 25% of their fixed compensation over three months and to pay it back to the endowment fund. The sums resulting from these reductions in remuneration had been paid to the benefitfice of Restaurants du Cœur, in France, and The Bowery Mission and Empty Bowls, in the United States.