Thierry Desmarest

Chairman od the Board 
Chairman of the Total Foundation

The total Foundation devoted the year 2008 to increasing the scope and depth of our corporate philanthropy. In addition to traditional environmental and biodiversity protection activities, we broadened our scope to include cultural and solidarity actions formerly under the purview of other units in the Group. At the same time, we deepened our approach by associating topics and participating teams to make our initiatives more consistent and cement our ties to the communities we support.

We sought to focus those ties on protecting what is fragile on the human time scale: the fragility of memory and of our cultural past, the ever-present fragility of our ecosystems, and the increasing fragility of social cohesion and, in some of our host countries, of access to healthcare.

Since the summer of 2008, the economic downturn has made our involvement more intense and more urgently needed. The Foundation’s by-laws provide an appropriate framework for our approach by requiring us to adopt a medium-term outlook and strictly monitor the initiatives we select.

In this new context, in 2008 the Total Foundation was keen to strengthen existing partnerships and multiply initiatives.

In the area of health, our partnership with the Pasteur Institute has given rise to innovative projects in Morocco, China and Cameroon. We were particularly pleased to see Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, our scientific advisor at the Pasteur Institute, awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine for her work on HIV-AIDS.
We are indebted to this outstanding researcher for her extremely helpful guidance on the public health initiatives we undertake.

In the area of community support, following an agreement with the Group’s central Works council, 800 schoolchildren from disadvantaged neighbourhoods were given access during the school year to holiday centres created for the children of our employees. We are also firmly committed to funding associations dedicated to helping children to remain in school and young people to find employment. A new partnership with Adie (Association for the right to economic initiative) rounds out our solidarity
programmes.

After three years of fruitful cooperation resulting in 50 renovations of cultural sites in various regions of France, total’s partnership with the Fondation du patrimoine has been extended for another three-year period.
The partnership favours restoration projects that create jobs and new public uses of local heritage sites throughout France.

In the area of culture, the Foundation is the leading corporate philanthropist for the islamic Arts Department of the Louvre Museum, where the first stone was laid for the new gallery last July.
We have also expanded our promotion of cultural dialogue to distant countries through a partnership with the quai Branly Museum, while continuing to finance major exhibitions showcasing the wealth and diversity of French culture at the Paris Arab World Institute, the National Maritime Museum in Paris and the Vieille Charité Museum in Marseilles.

In the area of environmental and biodiversity protection, the Foundation supported more than 50 projects, including 20 new ones. The projects, ranging from safeguarding threatened species and fragile ecosystems to increasing our understanding of genetic processes, are supported by awareness programmes.
A wetlands observatory is being set up in the Mediterranean region in partnership with the Tour du Valat Research Centre. Ifremer has mapped coastal ocean floors to develop a new database on natural habitats. the Census of Marine Life programme is now being consolidated…

In 2009, the Total Foundation plans to maintain our previous funding commitments in these three main areas, with special emphasis on developing community support initiatives in this time of economic uncertainty. Our goal is twofold: to combine and expand the ties between Total and the communities where we operate and to confirm, through our day-to-day actions, the meaning of our commitment to protecting what is fragile…