Gilles Paché

Agro-ecology is now considered as an alternative model to the industrial agricultural model. Faced with the limitations of conventional production models, agro-ecology is emerging today as a possible response to the challenges of the 21st century: food security, circularity, respect for the environment, and development of employment. More generally, the adoption of circular principles aims to decouple environmental pressure from agricultural productivism. Agro-ecology is a relevant research topic because it aims to ensure sustainable and resilient agricultural production, to empower local farmers, to protect the environment and to fight against climate change. This article focuses on the French Oasis projects, as part of the “Hummingbird movement” initiated by Pierre Rabhi, and which represent a successful agro-ecological experience, in economic, social and environmental terms. Different data were collected by compiling information available on the website of 76 Oasis projects across France: people living in the community; lodging possibilities; availability of a school; and direct relationship with local farmers. Then, a social factorial correspondence analysis and an environmental factorial correspondence analysis were realized to evaluate the impacts of environmental Oasis projects. The results show that profitable organizations seem to conduct more social and environmental activities in an agro-ecology context, and they put in place more actions than those who have no profitable aims.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting is of high importance for firms that wish to communicate their environmental and social actions to stakeholders and society at large. Of course, the credibility of CSR reporting affects considerably the market reaction to the information provided. Although research on environmental and social reporting is important, empirical evidence regarding the relevance of environmental and social disclosure to firms’ market values is scarce. This paper specifically analyzes the moderating role of external CSR assurance on the relationship between voluntary environmental and social reporting and firm market value. A content analysis index is then developed based on disclosure items specified in the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines. Using hand-collected data on a sample of French companies, the authors find that CSR assurance has a negative moderating effect on the relationship between high environmental and social reporting and firms’ market value, raising questions about the role of external assurance in assessing CSR reporting credibility.

Acknowledgment
The authors sincerely thank three anonymous reviewers of Environmental Economics for their insightful comments on a previous version of the paper.