Coming into force on January 1, 2024, the new directive on corporate sustainability reporting (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) replaces the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD) in place since 2014. It imposes harmonised European sustainability standardsexpands the scope of the companies concerned (from 11,000 to 50,000) and integrates the concept of double materiality, assessing both the environmental and social impacts of businesses and their influence on financial results.
Many world days and dedicated weeks to CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiatives are planned for 2024. These events offer companies the opportunity to communicate on their eco-responsible actions and organize internal activities to strengthen employee engagement. These initiatives show a growing desire among companies and legislators to strengthen sustainable practices and to make economic actors responsible in the face of current environmental and social challenges.
Specific standards regarding employee engagement
The CSRD Directive introduces the European Harmonised Sustainability Standards (ESRS), which require companies to report in a standardised manner on various aspects of their social engagement. These standards include specific reporting requirements on how companies involve their employees in sustainability initiatives and the policies put in place to improve employee engagement and retention. These requirements aim to encourage greater employee involvement in companies’ sustainability strategies and to improve transparency on social and environmental practices within the European Union. The CSRD thus requires companies to assess not only the environmental and social impact of their activities, but also how companies raise awareness, train and develop the skills of their employees on these sustainability issues.
Mindfulness to help businesses face CSRD
Mindfulness occurs when an individual deliberately directs their attention to the present moment, without judgment, remaining aware of the unfolding of their experience in each moment (“ An outpatient program in behavioral medicine for chronic pain patients based on the practice of mindfulness meditation: theoretical considerations and preliminary results », de J. Kabat-Zinn, General Hospital Psychiatry, 1982).
Mindfulness meditation thus allows us to better understand unconscious behaviors and reduce the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance, that is to say the gaps between our values and our actions in the world. To test the benefits of practicing mindfulness meditation on the eco-responsible commitment of employees, we have launched a research program since 2020.
In a first study of 830 French employees, we established a link between mindfulness meditation and ethical consumption. We tested our hypotheses with two participant groups comparable in terms of sociodemographic criteria: a group composed of 523 people who had followed a mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program – an educational approach that guides participants in their mindfulness meditation practice for 8 weeks – versus a group of 307 participants who had never followed a mindfulness meditation training program (“ Mindfulness Reduces Avaricious Monetary Attitudes and Enhances Ethical Consumer Beliefs: Mindfulness Training, Timing, and Practicing Matter », d’Elodie Gentina, Carole Daniel et Thomas Li-Ping Tang, Journal of Business Ethics, 2020)
The results highlight that mindfulness meditation brings individuals into the realm of ethical reflection (people who followed an MBSR program obtaining a higher ethical beliefs score than those who did not follow training). In other words, cultivating one’s ability to be attentive to the present moment, to develop a greater awareness of what is happening within and around us, leads to thinking and acting more ethically in the area of consumption.
In a second study carried out with 778 French employees, we demonstrated that the development of this ethical identity effectively led to an intention to purchase more ecological products, demonstrating employees’ commitment to more sustainable purchasing actions ( “ Mindfulness and green purchase intention: A mediated moderation model uncovering the role of ethical self-identity », by Carole Daniel, Elodie Gentina and Tavleen Kaur, Ecological Economics, 2023).
Finally, a third study carried out among 467 French employees confirms the effects of mindfulness meditation on this commitment, and extends it beyond so-called “green” purchases, to frugality behaviors, to more consumer attitudes. ethics and committed acts of environmental preservation (“ Mindfulness, spiritual well-being, and sustainable consumer behavior », de Carole Daniel, Rafi M.M.I. Chowdhury et Elodie Gentina, Journal of Cleaner Production, 2024).
Mindfulness meditation confirms its purpose in business
Mindfulness meditation training programs could therefore enrich the range of awareness training on sustainability issues such as frescoes (on the climate, on the regenerative economy), which have become viral in business. These recently established benefits add to the more well-known and established effects of this type of training on stress and well-being.
In 2022, as part of a research program on employee health, we carried out a study with 1,022 employees demonstrating the protective role of the practice of mindfulness on work-life balance. This study demonstrated that employees practicing mindfulness meditation were better able to contain the harmful effects of their addictive tendencies at work than non-practicing employees (“ Mindfulness buffers the deleterious effects of workaholism for work-family conflict », by Carole Daniel, Elodie Gentina et Jessica Mesmer-Magnus, Social Science & Medicine, 2022).
Companies actually have a major interest in promoting the practice of mindfulness meditation, an interest that goes well beyond the fight against stress and the prevention of psychosocial risks.
Thus, mindfulness meditation is not only a tool for personal development, aimed at individual hedonic or healing goals. It is also a practice of developing ethical, social and environmental awareness.
