Our CSR approach
A long-term commitment to serving the scientific community
Innovative solutions | Dedicated teams | Impact-conscious company | Positive contribution to the ecosystem
For over 25 years, CYIM has been supporting learned societies in embracing information technologies by offering innovative solutions and mobilizing dedicated teams that are attentive to their needs.
Our CSR approach is a natural extension of this mission. It reflects our vision of a responsible company — aware of its impact and committed to making a positive contribution to the ecosystem to which we have chosen to dedicate ourselves.
Our Vision of Performance
Performance & Economic Reality | Economic Value is Not a Foregone Conclusion | Social & Environmental Progress
At CYIM, we do not see performance and economic reality as opposing forces.
The two co-founders, Samuel CASTEL and Erwan GALESNE, met in the 1990s as high-level athletes and committed volunteers within their sports federation. It was through this experience that they learned sustainable performance requires far more than endurance or talent: it demands not only commitment, but also the ability to innovate, to question oneself, and to push beyond established limits.
This culture of high standards, going the extra mile, and collective intelligence continues to shape the way we do business today. We don’t claim to be changing the system — but we do reject the idea that economic value is an end in itself. For us, it’s a means: a lever to create impact, to support social and environmental progress, and to contribute to a more sustainable and equitable ecosystem.
In 2025, we are strengthening this commitment by establishing an internal CSR steering committee, engaging with our stakeholders, and obtaining the LUCIE 26000 label. This label, based on the European ISO 26000 standard, is part of a demanding approach that contributes to all of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Respect for All Our Stakeholders
Trusted Relationships | Shared Responsibility | Balance Between Individual Expression and Collective Responsibility | Mutual Respect, Trust & Reciprocity | Concrete Commitments
Our CSR approach is built around a fundamental principle: respect and consideration for all our stakeholders. We have always been attentive to the interests of our clients, employees, shareholders, partners, subcontractors, educational institutions, and local communities.
At CYIM, we build trusting relationships with our clients based on transparency, attentive listening, and shared responsibility. Our solutions are designed to meet the specific needs of the scientific community while promoting a model of resource sharing and accessibility.
Historically, it was the most innovative learned societies that carried the initial investment in Research & Development by partnering with our approach. Today, we have reversed this logic. To accelerate adoption and broaden access to innovation, CYIM now invests upfront, without any guarantee of immediate return. A prime example is our conference mobile app: over €340,000 invested even before knowing if the market would follow. This willingness to take risks feels natural to us — given our size and vision, we believe it is our role to pave the way. We trust our clients to recognize the value created and to move forward alongside us.
Another key point: we do not lock our clients into long-term, restrictive contracts. This is neither our culture nor our vision of client relationships. We believe that the quality of the bond depends on each party’s freedom to continue — or not — from year to year. This requirement pushes us to constantly challenge ourselves, improve year after year, and never rest on our laurels.
Being a resourceful company means, for us, being an integral part of the scientific ecosystem, with the commitment to offer more than just tools: stability, reliability, and a sincere dedication to serving a shared body of knowledge.
At CYIM, we have always believed that the quality of customer support depends primarily on the value given to our teams. This is a strong conviction, a managerial ideal that we strive to embody every day. We know this ambition requires time, attentive listening, and continuous self-reflection.
We recognize each employee for who they are: a unique individual, enriched by their background and ideas, capable of actively contributing to a collective project. This recognition truly makes sense when it is balanced between individual expression and collective responsibility. Everyone should be able to share their ideas, listen to others, and accept that, in the interest of the group, some decisions must prevail even if they are not unanimous. It is this ability to combine freedom of opinion with team spirit that creates a work environment that is respectful, demanding, and effective.
At CYIM, work is a place where we build and grow. We are committed to creating an environment based on knowledge sharing, listening, and trust, where everyone can find their place and contribute to the collective dynamic. This approach to human relationships lies at the heart of our culture and the bond that unites us — both with each other and with our clients.
At CYIM, we maintain relationships with our suppliers and partners based on mutual respect, trust, and reciprocity. Some collaborations have lasted for more than ten years, rooted in a logic of co-development, sector cooperation, and continuous improvement. We expect the best from them—but sustainable excellence: sometimes we work together to update applications to extend the lifespan of equipment rather than replacing it.
This respect also involves concrete commitments: payment within agreed deadlines, transparency about projects, and a shared demand for reliability and openness. This rigor also applies to our relationship with our funders: we do not ask them to support abstract promises but to finance useful projects grounded in reality, for which we stand by our commitments.
Additionally, we rely on an extensive network of freelancers across Europe, often called upon for our international assignments. We understand that these professionals have their own projects—sometimes more creative, sometimes more personal. Our responsibility is to provide them with medium-term visibility on projects, to allow them the freedom to accept or decline assignments, and to facilitate contract processes as much as possible while ensuring prompt payment of their invoices.
For us, working together does not mean imposing. It means building balanced relationships where recognizing expertise, honoring commitments, and maintaining quality connections matter as much as performance.
A Thoughtful Eco-Responsible Approach
Assumed Technical Choices | Environmental Responsibility & Strategic Consistency | Energy Efficiency | Free Cooling and Energy Recovery | Ethical as well as Environmental Choices | Employee Well-being
Learn more : At CYIM, environmental and social commitment is an integral part of our DNA. For over 25 years, we have chosen a sober, clear-eyed, and responsible path aligned with current ecological and social challenges. Our approach goes beyond mere compliance with regulations: it is based on deliberate technical choices, designed to last, and intended to minimize our impact without compromising the quality of our services.
Acting for the environment does not mean sacrificing rigor or performance. It is a balance we build every day by evolving our practices, infrastructure, and tools.
This commitment is reflected in our concrete actions, starting with the management of our headquarters, Le Sémaphore, and the design of our hosting infrastructure (datacenter), which remains a major source of energy consumption.
The operation of our datacenter naturally represents our main energy consumption point. It is also a major lever for environmental responsibility and strategic coherence. Therefore, we have chosen to act on two fundamental axes: energy sobriety on one hand, and technological independence on the other.
From an environmental perspective, our system primarily relies on free cooling: it uses outside air to cool our servers, avoiding the systematic use of air conditioning. The heat generated is recovered to warm our premises, following a circular energy economy approach. This technical choice helps limit our carbon footprint while maintaining a high level of performance.
We have also strengthened the resilience of our infrastructure: automatic alerts, intelligent load distribution, separate electrical protection, and controlled thermal regulation. This operational rigor aims to ensure service continuity without unnecessarily oversizing equipment.
But beyond the technical aspects, our approach is based on a strong commitment: hosting locally, in a sovereign and responsible manner. By operating our own infrastructure, hosted in France, we are not subject to extraterritorial laws such as the American Cloud Act, thus preserving the integrity of the data entrusted to us.
This is as much an ethical as an environmental choice: contributing to a more sovereign, resilient, and resource-respecting digital Europe, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals and the European strategy for responsible digital technology. Our conviction is clear: technological power only makes sense if it is controlled, local, and serves the common good.
At Le Sémaphore, we have chosen a measured thermal regulation approach, designed to respect both the environment and the well-being of our employees.
Rather than imposing rigid rules, we have developed a gradual approach based on the teams’ actual experience, observation of usage, and real-life comfort.
- In winter, the building is heated progressively: a welcoming temperature of 19–20 °C in the morning, naturally rising to 21 °C from 10 a.m., thus avoiding the “heat shock” often felt when entering an overheated space.
- During the transitional seasons and summer, the temperature freely fluctuates between 20 and 24 °C, without systematic use of air conditioning.
- In case of high heat, night ventilation is activated to cool the building before the teams arrive, and air conditioning is only triggered above 25 °C. Offices are equipped with local control units, allowing employees to adjust their comfort. Thresholds have been refined through analysis of actual behaviors: when adjustments stopped being made, it confirmed that the right balance had been found.
This approach reflects how we act: not opposing performance and sobriety, but seeking the right compromises in a spirit of moderation, listening, and collective responsibility. It illustrates our belief that a successful transition depends above all on those who live it daily.
This chart illustrates the dynamics of our electricity consumption over the period 2020–2025. A clear trend can be observed: despite the gradual increase in usage related to electric vehicle charging stations, our total consumption has been decreasing since 2022.
This development is no accident: it results from a methodical energy management effort for the building, optimizing ventilation, heating, and air conditioning systems. These adjustments have allowed us to fully offset the increased consumption caused by electric vehicle charging.
This development is no accident: it results from a methodical energy management effort for the building, optimizing ventilation, heating, and air conditioning systems. These adjustments have allowed us to fully offset the increased consumption caused by electric vehicle charging. But beyond the numbers, this evolution reflects a broader choice. By installing charging stations available to our employees, we have contributed to decarbonizing commuting. This initiative is part of a wider sustainable mobility policy, which also includes the implementation of secure bicycle parking and Bicycle Mileage Allowances to encourage soft mobility options. Our approach is therefore not limited to an accounting reduction in consumption; it aims to reduce indirect emissions linked to our activities while providing concrete, useful, and accessible solutions for our teams.
Responsible and Innovative R&D
Developing useful, efficient, and sustainable solutions | Concrete innovation | Minimizing unnecessary flows and optimizing resources | Real impact
At CYIM, R&D is a strategic lever in support of our mission. We dedicate nearly 10% of our annual revenue to it, with a constant requirement: to develop useful, efficient, and sustainable solutions designed for real-world use and created to minimize their environmental impact.
Our approach favors concrete, modular, and easily deployable innovation.
Take, for example, our badge pickup stations: made from birch plywood, they assemble without screws or glue, are fully dismantlable, and can be transported flat, making them ten times less bulky than traditional models. This design greatly reduces the carbon footprint related to transportation, facilitates maintenance, and extends the lifespan of the materials.
On the digital side, our R&D focuses on efficient architectures designed to limit unnecessary data flows and optimize resources. Our data exchange systems rely on lightweight, decentralized synchronization mechanisms capable of functioning even without a stable connection.
This approach is part of a controlled low-tech philosophy: avoiding unnecessary complexity, reducing technical needs, and ensuring resilience in constrained environments.
In summary, we do not develop for the sake of innovation. We develop to solve problems, simplify, and improve.
Our R&D is a space of applied progress, where every technical decision is evaluated based on its real impact, durability, and practical usefulness.
Our Contribution to the Scientific Community
Direct & lasting relationships | Trust & commitment to the public good | Facilitating access to scientific resources | Ongoing training for healthcare professionals | Improving quality of care
Since our inception, we have chosen to directly support those who generate knowledge, particularly within medical specialty scientific societies. Like a short supply chain, we promote a direct and lasting relationship between recognized experts in each field and healthcare professionals who use this knowledge. This relationship, founded on trust and commitment to the public interest, enables a smoother and more relevant dissemination of knowledge.
This positioning allows us to offer coherent solutions focused on a clear objective: facilitating direct access to scientific resources while strengthening the editorial independence of scientific societies.
Each year, thanks to our tools, thousands of hours of conferences, training sessions, and specialized content are accessible through their own distribution channels. These materials, tailored to the needs of each community, support the ongoing training of healthcare professionals, encourage the dissemination of best practices, and more broadly contribute to improving the quality of care.
Our Commitment for the Future
Shifting entrenched behaviors | Reducing the environmental impact of conferences | Relocating certain services | Continuous improvement approach
These examples illustrate our concrete and structured approach to environmental and societal challenges. But we remain realistic: a significant part of the journey is still ahead of us. Some technical optimizations are still possible, but we know that future progress will also depend on our ability to change ingrained behaviors, starting with our own.
The organization of scientific conferences, the historical core of our activity, currently represents one of the most sensitive areas in terms of environmental impact. We do not seek to downplay this reality: the carbon footprints of such events—especially international ones—are substantial.
We have begun to address this, notably by offering broader access to conferences via streaming—a solution that is imperfect but significantly less carbon-intensive than, for example, flying from Paris to Berlin.
We also recognize that we still transport a lot of personnel and equipment from France. Relocating certain services, renting more equipment locally, and relying more on our European network are all avenues we have started to explore, but these require a change in operational culture. And, as often is the case, this will take time.
At CYIM, we do not view CSR as a constraint. It is an opportunity to reaffirm our values, question what can be questioned, and build a more sustainable model that meets social, economic, and environmental challenges.
Currently in the process of obtaining the LUCIE 26000 certification, based on the European ISO 26000 CSR framework, we have embarked on a continuous improvement process covering all the Sustainable Development Goals.
Our 2025–2026 roadmap will define our concrete, measurable, and transparent commitments to continue innovating in service of the scientific community while respecting all our stakeholders and our planet.
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Download our CSR approach here in PDF