For the past decade, the OMNES Education Group has placed social and environmental responsibility and the transition to a low-carbon economy at the heart of its concerns and teaching.
Young people are particularly sensitive to all of these issues and a teaching group must not only take them into account, but also accompany its students in understanding the issues and challenges to be met and allow each one to have the framework of understanding, reflection and tools to act in professional life.
The group has even adopted a charter of ethics and a warning system to regulate the behavior of its teachers, employees and students. It has entered into an agreement with the HUGO! association, which works on many campuses to prevent and deal with situations of discrimination related to gender, sexual orientation or disability.
With a view to teaching by example and by action, the group has signed an agreement with the SOS Group to enable 10,000 of its students to participate in a one-week immersion course in associations serving the beneficiaries of the SOS Group in various fields: welcoming refugees, protecting women victims of violence, welcoming minors at risk, reintegrating former prisoners, etc.
Governance
OMNES Education has had a consultation and decision-making system for the implementation of its CSR policy since late 2014. It is composed of a CSR Commission, with an external Chairperson, members representing the major entities and functions of OMNES Education and a CSR Director. In addition, there are two sets of referents: one representing the employees, the other the students; in other words, there are ramifications right to the heart of all OMNES Education establishments. Each of the group’s schools defines its CSR policy for both its commitments and its teaching programs.
The CSR Commission and the whole system linked to it thus constitute a strong and structuring mechanism in the life of OMNES Education.
Labels and standards
While traditional labels are increasingly integrating the CSR dimension (e.g. AACSB), labels (e.g. AASHE, STARS, STAUNCH, EQUIS, QUESTE, etc.) and international rankings (e.g. World University Ranking GreenMetric) are increasingly devoted to it. The latter are now considered criteria for differentiating the international competitiveness and attractiveness of higher education and research institutions.
This is why OMNES Education has decided to compete for several of these labels and standards, implementing a proactive program for the coming years.
Commitments
A role to play in the training of future business leaders
Today we are at the end of an era: that of an economy based on the exploitation of natural resources, especially fossil fuels, a pyramidal organization of companies, an exclusively commercial management oriented towards short-term profit. This third industrial revolution is gradually changing the way we live, consume, work, undertake and communicate.
All companies must reconcile the search for performance and profit with the quality and seriousness of their environmental and societal commitments in order to keep the trust of their customers.
We are convinced that our teaching and our exemplarity contribute to the fact that new business leaders, thanks to the approaches and methods made available to them, integrate economic, societal and environmental impacts into each of their decisions. In other words, they are part of a vision of corporate social responsibility (CSR).
Cross-cutting and participatory commitments
By adopting a transversal and participative vision of CSR, OMNES Education adheres to the framework of the Green Plan, resulting from the Grenelle de l’Environnement (2009) and adopted by most of the French Grandes Écoles and Universities.
The regularly updated inventory of OMNES Education’s CSR practices and projects must be seen as the foundation of our various campuses, all of which have a vocation to become truly responsible campuses, within the framework of a shared strategy based on the following five orientations
- Building more effective and inclusive governance
- Spreading CSR in our core business
- Being an actor in the ecological transition
- Protecting our students and employees
- To contribute through our teaching to a responsible economy with positive impacts
Studying with a disability at OMNES Education Group
In all OMNES Education schools, efforts are constantly being made to improve the quality of reception of students with disabilities, which has been recognized by the Qualiopi certification since early 2021.
As part of its social and environmental approach, equal opportunities and education for all are essential rights that the OMNES Education Group wishes to defend for all its students.
OMNES Education’s primary goal is not only to facilitate access to higher education for students with disabilities, but also to provide them with the comfort of daily work so that they can devote themselves to their studies with complete peace of mind.
Aware that it is not always easy to talk about one’s disability outside of a private setting, and that the disability is not always visible, OMNES Education does everything possible to allow the student to be in the best possible conditions of confidence and discretion to confide in us about their disability.
The disability may be temporary or permanent. In all cases,solutions existand students have the possibility of being accompanied. To initiate these steps, students must contact the disability advisor.
ALL THE SCHOOL’S TEAMS ARE CONCERNED
Even if the disability advisor remains the first point of contact, all the school’s departments can provide assistance to the student according to his/her needs. It is the collaboration between the student, the advisor and the different services of the school that will allow a successful accompaniment.
In addition, the student/learner has the possibility of being accompanied at any stage of his/her academic journey within OMNES Education.
Even if they have not declared their disability upon admission, students can turn to the advisor for help with internships, international travel, exams or, more generally, whenever they feel the need to be accompanied in their studies.
However, anticipation is the most important element in the success of the support process, so it is important to plan ahead if the student wishes to benefit from accommodations for a specific deadline (internship, exam, etc.).
The diagram below shows that, whatever the stage of the student’s journey within OMNES Education, he or she can rely on the Disability Advisor and the various services available within the school.
SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES
This diagram highlights several elements:
- The disability advisor and the student work together and are at the heart of the decisions.
- It is possible to initiate a coaching process at any stage of the academic career.
- At each stage, the various departments of the school are available to provide support
CSR Reports
The CSR report is intended to be an inventory of the practices and results of the OMNES Education Group in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility.
This document, published for the first time in 2014, is published annually to present the Group’s actions and progress in this area.