Contacts with stakeholders are an increasingly common feature of our day-to-day work. Colleagues, customers, suppliers, governments, local communities, NGOs and shareholders expect us to demonstrate ethical conduct and respect. Each of us must forge fair, sustainable, trust-based relationships with the people we come into contact with.

Our ethics process is designed to ensure that these relationships are built on a solid foundation of clear, shared principles and codes, which are the best way of protecting Total from the major risks that we can encounter in our operations. Our reputation can be permanently damaged by a failure to uphold human rights or comply with antitrust law, an abuse of human rights, or tolerance of corruption. Anything of this nature undermines investor confidence and business relations, in turn jeopardizing our stability. The media revolution, especially the spread of digital media, accentuates this risk. We have to be well prepared and proactive.

That’s why we have made respect for stakeholders a daily imperative, underpinned by a Code of Conduct, an Ethics Committee and a dedicated intranet site.

Our senior executives support these measures fully. They model ethical business conduct, and set the example by embracing it themselves, instilling and promoting it and ensuring its correct implementation by employees.

Total firmly believes that ethics and integrity are the surest path to sustainable and, responsible growth.

Our Code of Conduct

Total conducts business in accordance with the bedrock values and principles set out in our Code of Conduct. The Code includes senior management’s commitments, presents the principles adopted and shared by all Total companies, and lists the internationally recognized documents to which we refer. It also details the business principles to be followed in dealing with our stakeholders and the rules of individual and collective behavior that our employees are expected to apply.

Code of conduct

Our ethics process

Total’s ethics process is based directly on policy statements issued by senior management and is set out in our Code of Conduct. Major resources are dedicated to implementing the ethics process, in particular regarding information dissemination, raising awareness and verification. Managers model the expected conduct on the front lines. They are an essential pillar of the application of our ethical principles and values.

Our ethics  process

Organizations involved in our ethics process

The Ethics Committee is responsible for making sure the Code of Conduct is properly applied. The Committee is with immediate supervisors, the main point of contact for any employee facing an ethics-related issue. It can be consulted at any time in the strictest confidentiality.

The Compliance and Social Responsibility Department, the Corporate Audit Department, the Human Resources Department and University also play key roles in driving implementation of our ethical process, led by our senior executives and other managers, who set the example for all of us.

Organizations

Methods, resources and tools

Correct application of our ethics process requires dedicated methods, resources and tools. The various intranet sites and training courses available across Total enable us to educate and inform our employees about this process. We ensure the effective implementation of our principles and values using ethical assessments and internal control procedures.

Methods

Initiatives and partnerships

Our membership in a wide variety of global organizations and initiatives, such as the Global Compact and the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), clearly demonstrate our commitment to ensuring application of the principles we believe in, not just at Total but in the wider world around us.

Initiatives