Total South Africa (TSA) formalized its ethical principles with the publication of Code of Ethics in 2000. Pursuing its commitment, in 2003 it held a seminar on Ethics and Business, in addition to setting up an Ethics Committee and a dedicated hotline. In 2005, the subsidiary underwent an ethical assessment by accreditation company GoodCorporation.

While there were clearly no major compliance problems cited in the assessment report, there was some concern that the Code of Ethics was being underutilized and was insufficiently integrated into the corporate culture, organization and decision-making processes. As a result, TSA’s management decided to re-examine the company’s existing practices, and at the end of 2006 a new version of the Code of Ethics was published.

André Barwick, Company Secretary and Ethics Officer of the Ethics Committee, Total South Africa

The Code of Ethics, Guidelines for Dealing with Day-to-Day Issues

“At the end of 2005 our goal was simply to ensure better awareness of our ethical principles among employees and external stakeholders. In order to do so, it was obvious that we needed to revise our Code, providing more detailed information and integrating it more effectively into our corporate organization and culture.

While the TSA Code is a natural outgrowth of Total’s Code of Conduct, it also takes into account the local South African situation and TSA’s specific corporate culture so that it is more relevant to employees. The Code is built around our four core values—professionalism, transparency, diversity and pride—and sets out detailed business principles covering acceptable/unacceptable behavior in each of these areas in our day-to-day work.

At present, our priority is to distribute the Code, initially internally. Later in 2007, we will focus on communicating our values and principles externally, principally to our suppliers. Although there’s a lot to be done before the new Code is fully embraced and integrated, we’ve gotten off to an encouraging start, with a stronger commitment to our beliefs and ethical conduct.”