Thierry Desmarest
Chairman,
Board of Directors, Total
Chairman, Total Foundation

“ 2009 was a year of new achievements in our core areas of focus, as well as innovative initiatives.”

Home to Total’s four corporate philanthropy programs since 2008, the Total Foundation completed our first full year of operation under our expanded scope in 2009. It was a year of new achievements in our core areas of focus, as well as innovative initiatives. After 17 years of working alongside environmentalists, the marine biodiversity program enjoyed a highlight event in the fall, when the Fifth Port-Cros Symposium attracted 70 participants — oceanographers, biologists, teachers, researchers, port and regional planning managers and ship owners — for an exploration of maritime transport and biodiversity. A corporate foundation is fulfilling its mission when it brings together diverse stakeholders, motivated by a shared awareness of the environmental and social issues of the day. A desire to share and educate is what prompted us to support the production and distribution of the documentary Oceans, which both increases scientific knowledge of marine species and educates the general public about their beauty and fragility. As the International Year of Biodiversity gets under way, the Foundation is supporting more than 60 marine environment research and preservation programs.

In the area of health, the Total Foundation’s partnership with the Pasteur Institute also works to expand and share knowledge, for the benefit of physicians, health care personnel and people exposed to pandemics. Our first five-year agreement ended in 2009 with groundbreaking initiatives to prevent HIV/AIDS in Angola and Morocco, battle childhood diarrhea in Madagascar and learn more about poorly understood types of hepatitis in China. In 2010, a new agreement between Total and the Pasteur Institute that will include a Françoise Barré-Sinoussi Chair will strive to improve knowledge and prevention of infectious diseases in the hardest-hit countries.

Recently added to the Foundation’s purview, cultural philanthropy set its sights even higher, focusing on cultural dialogue. The exhibitions we supported took us from Byzantium to the Court of Abomey, from Palestine to ancient Egypt. In the last case, the Louvre was opened to groups unaccustomed to visiting museums, something that had never been tried before.
At the same time, through our partnership with French heritage preservation association Fondation du Patrimoine, renewed for a further three years, several companies dedicated to workforce entry were able to get involved in renovation projects, adding a new dimension to a local cultural sponsorship initiative rooted in the regional economic and social fabric.

The issues of equal opportunity and youth employment that motivate the Total Foundation’s community support program have taken on new urgency and demand innovative action from business, political and social leaders. In 2009,Total became the first private-sector partner of Fonds d’expérimentation pour la jeunesse, created in France by the High Commissioner for Youth Affairs. This new commitment broadens the scope of certain programs the Foundation already supports to prevent academic failure and help young people enter the workforce. It also allows us to work more closely with government authorities to identify, experiment with and assess innovative initiatives in the fields of education and health.

Moving forward, the commitments of the Total Foundation and Total’s corporate philanthropy will reflect three interrelated issues: strengthening our civic roots through community support programs; expanding cultural dialogue by leveraging Total’s international reach; and applying what we have learned from biodiversity and health researchto our field initiatives. Now more than ever, the Total Foundation embodies the original meaning of corporate philanthropy: building bridges between the worlds of research, non-profit associations and businesses, to increase and share knowledge for the benefit of all.