Danone, Société à Mission since 2020

Our Société à Mission status

Danone’s Dual Project of pursuing both business success and social progress has given rise to major sustainability commitments and innovations since former CEO Antoine Riboud’s 1972 speech. In June 2020, Danone became the first publicly listed company to adopt the Société à Mission status created by the French Pacte law in 2019, embedding ambitious objectives across health, environment, social topics, and inclusiveness in its by-laws.

Becoming a Société à Mission

In 2020, Danone became the first publicly listed company to adopt the “Société à Mission” status. In accordance with this status, Danone has:

Defined and embedded within the company’s by-laws a purpose ("raison d’être") – i.e., our mission of ‘bringing health through food to as many people as possible’.
Included in its by-laws social and environmental objectives aligned with that purpose.
Created a Mission Committee responsible for monitoring progress made towards achieving these objectives.
Appointed an independent third party to verify that the mission is carried out.

The four Société à Mission objectives

The social and environmental objectives that Danone adopted as a Société à Mission are aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs), and cover four themes related to health, environment, social topics, and inclusiveness:

Impact people’s health locally, with a portfolio of healthier products, with brands encouraging better nutritional choices, and by promoting better dietary habits.
Preserve and renew the planet’s resources, by supporting regenerative agriculture, protecting the water cycle, and strengthening the circular economy of packaging across its entire ecosystem in order to contribute to the fight against climate change.
Entrust Danone’s people to shape the futures, building on a unique social innovation heritage, and giving each employee the opportunity to impact the decisions of the company, both locally and globally.
Foster inclusive growth, by ensuring equal opportunities within the company, supporting the most vulnerable partners in its ecosystem, and developing everyday products accessible to as many people as possible.

Each of these four objectives is broken down into detailed operational objectives, and into mid- and long-term trajectories with annual milestones.

Promoting ESG investment is my personal and professional mission. I was very excited, therefore, to hear that Danone is transforming itself into an “Société à Mission”, which is legally structured and creates a contractual mandate with shareholders to pursue ESG integration at the business. When it comes to Danone, it was not a surprise. But changing its by-laws to integrate a mission is nevertheless a significant and bold experiment. If Danone succeeds, it will become a role model.

Hirochimi Mizuno
Board Member of PRI, Advisor to the Government

The mission committee

Progress on the objectives and the annual milestones is overseen by Danone’s Mission Committee, which includes highly-respected, independent global experts across sustainable development, governance, environment, health, and social issues. The Mission Committee draws up a report every year, which is made public and presented to shareholders during each Annual Shareholders’ Meeting.

The 2023 Danone Mission Committee Report, published in April 2024, is available for download below.