Acting as a mission-driven company 2025

I am delighted to present you with our fifth mission report, some five years after Mirova adopted its status as a mission-driven company. As is customary, I would like to take this opportunity to share my views about all we have accomplished since then and also about what we hope to achieve in the future. Mirova was among the first companies in its sector to adopt mission-driven company status, and we did so just one year after the PACTE law establishing the status was enacted. This innovative framework defined the notion of mission of collective interest and imposed a dedicated governance structure, offering companies an opportunity to expand their horizons and look beyond their fiduciary duties alone. It was a major step towards building an official framework for the principle of corporate responsibility previously associated with “CSR”. Sustainability already being a core element of Mirova’s activities, this approach served a dual purpose: to seek continuous improvement by embracing the recommendations made by our Mission Committee, and to impose the highest of standards on ourselves. The public’s perception of our industry can at times be negative, so it seemed more essential than ever to regain its trust. These are the very same principles that prevailed when Mirova was first created a few years after the crisis of 2008. Sustainable finance has since clearly become part of the landscape, yet political and even economic pressures are appearing in what some refer to as a “backlash”. From this perspective, we are evidently at the dawn of a new era given the recent geopolitical upheaval, the political uncertainty looming ahead for Europe and the visible backslide in environmental regulations. The PACTE law is a legacy from the previous positive era.  It has enabled companies to adopt a framework that gives them opportunities to showcase their mission-related aspirations. Paradoxically, the company has become a driving force for the transition and even for promoting a form of ethical conduct applicable to economic development, whereas 10 years ago this was a role that was mostly taken on by institutional organisations. We can see something similar happening with the B corp company on an international scale. So, more than ever before, mission-driven companies have remained essential players in 2025.

And yet we cannot simply ignore the fact that the world is undergoing a radical transformation. We built our mission-driven model back in 2020 when the world was a very different place, so such changes needed to be factored in if we wanted our model to remain fully operational. Likewise, the sustainable finance sector cannot overlook the strategic and structural dimensions of industries like artificial intelligence and defence. Given its perception of the transition, Mirova has never been one to bury its head in the sand for ideological reasons.  We encourage guidance through engagement rather than by applying exclusions alone; we stand by the fact that our fiduciary duty involves addressing long-term issues through ESG criteria; and we call for stronger sector regulations that will support sustainable finance – we have fully taken on board all these aspects in our new mission-driven model, which we have spent the past year building together with all our staff members in an effort to adapt it to the new issues facing today’s world. This updated mission-driven model will now be the guiding force for our activities. I hope you will enjoy reading this report, which sheds light on the changes we have made to our model over the past year with invaluable help from our Mission Committee.