147 Life Is On | Schneider Electric www.se.com 2021 Sustainable Development Report 6.4.10 Action towards employability in France Wherever it operates, Schneider Electric makes a strong commitment to community partners and civil society through positioning itself in a way that is indispensable for a global enterprise that wants to keep in touch with the labor markets of its industrial locations. In France, numerous projects, broken down into four challenges: youth, planet, poverty, and territory, demonstrate Schneider Electric’s desire to be engaged, notably in the area of employability, and to contribute fully to local economic development. Based on their successes, some of them are planned to be deployed broadly in the frame of the long-term commitments in the Schneider Sustainability Impact; called “Empower local communities”. 6.4.10.1 Schneider Electric School In 1929, Schneider Electric founded its own school – Paul-Louis Merlin – in Grenoble, to address the difficulty of recruiting skilled labor in the energy industry and help young people in precarious situations to access promising jobs. Today, it still focuses on vocational training in Schneider Electric areas of expertise, with innovative training approaches and close alignment with actual industry practices. Students leave with qualifications enabling them to continue in higher education or take employment in innovation-rich energy- sector fields such as renewable energies, home automation, and smart buildings, as well as energy management. In 2019, to reinforce the link with the Group, the school changed its name to École Schneider Electric and a new vocational training has been added in the frame of the creation of its CFA (Centre de Formation d’Apprentis) . In July 2021, to meet the ever-increasing need for skills in the energy and electrical sectors, and in a context where there is growing concern about the professional future of young people, the CFA has taken a new step forward and expanded its range of training courses both geographically and in terms of content by forging new partnerships. In addition to the current BTS “Fluids Energies Home Automation” and the Licence professionnelle “Connected Buildings and Intelligent Energy Management” courses, which are currently offered by the CFA, there are: • The BTS CRSA (Design and Production of Automatic Systems) with the Vaucanson High School in Grenoble (France); • The vocational baccalaureate MELEC (Electrical Trades and Connected Environments) with the Lycée Pablo Neruda in Saint-Martin-d’Hères (France); • The BTS FED Home Automation and Communicating Buildings, extended to a new geographical area, with the Lycée Maximilien-Perret in Alfortville (France).