The challenge of professionalising digital responsibility
Digital responsibility is no longer limited to laudable intentions: it's becoming a real strategic issue. At SNCF Connect & Tech, Mathilde Lecompte, CSR Manager, and Benjamin Demonet, Senior Software Engineer, share their vision of an approach that is becoming an increasingly professional one.
"Digital responsibility is a cross-functional approach that integrates multiple notions including sobriety, ethics, accessibility, safety and the environment," explains Mathilde Lecompte, CSR Manager at SNCF Connect & Tech, adding that, "the question we ask ourselves on a daily basis is how can digital technology best support our society?" This observation is shared by Benjamin Demonet, Senior Software Engineer: "from the moment our core business is digital, we have a responsibility to professionalise the process within the company and integrate it into our strategy."
"GDPR compliance and digital accessibility are already well integrated, partly driven by regulatory obligations. However, our desire goes beyond this: we want to guarantee an inclusive and useful digital experience, while reducing its environmental impact."
MathildeLecompte
CSR Manager
From acculturation to realisation
Since 2018, SNCF Connect & Tech has been translating this ambition into real-life objectives.
Mathilde Lecompte highlights one of the main challenges: "Moving from a caring vision of digital responsibility to an indispensable, systematised approach. It's not about adding one-off initiatives, but of structuring the overall strategy by setting measurable targets and integrating them into existing decision-making processes."
Another major challenge for Benjamin Demonet is coping with the speed of technological evolution. "The craze for new trends can lead to technological choices dictated by hype rather than real utility. To remedy this, we have set up a technology evaluation system based on sustainability and analysis of the associated risks for the company. The next step will be to combine it with criteria of sobriety and environmental impact to guarantee an informed choice."
Pushing the boundaries of our thinking
By 2030, SNCF Connect & Tech aims to roll out all its projects based on the General Policy Framework for the Ecodesign of Digital Services (RGESN), and to achieve a level of compliance ranging from 60 to 80% depending on the user journey. "For SNCF Connect, the Greenspector tool has already been used for three years to measure the environmental performance of the buyer's journey for long- and short-distance ticket purchases. We know, for example, that buying a Paris-Bordeaux train ticket, over wifi from a cell phone released in 2018 running Android 10, emits around 3.1 grams of CO2e,” Mathilde Lecompte adds.
With regards to accessibility, efforts are already proving effective:
RGAA compliance for the website
(out of 29 pages audited) with a target of 80% by 2025.
RGAA compliance for the app
with a target of 60% by 2025 and 80% by 2030.
"Above all, these figures embody our ability to push the boundaries of our thinking. In this way, each of our projects brings all professions to the table so that they can work together to make their solutions more useful, more used and more energy-efficient."
A collective approach for overall impact
The latest example is a project for equipping train and station staff, for which designers and technicians worked hand in hand. "Thanks to an internal audit process, we implemented corrective actions throughout the project to ensure that SOLAR would not be a barrier to the hiring of people with disabilities," explains Benjamin Demonet. Reconciling performance, user experience and digital sobriety therefore requires increased collaboration between designers and developers. "The design ops approach guarantees the creation of simple interfaces, using as few resources as possible, and respecting accessibility as early as possible in the life cycle of our digital products," continues Benjamin Demonet.
Team awareness and training
To support all its employees in this dynamic, SNCF Connect & Tech has set up a two-day eco-design training programme, with a common foundation course and specialisations by business line.
employees trained in 2024.
"Partnerships with external stakeholders also reinforce these efforts. Since 2023, we've been collaborating with La Cantine x La French Tech Nantes, an ecosystem bringing together large companies and startups to share best practices in digital responsibility."
On 18 March 2025, Mathilde Lecompte and Benjamin Demonet shared their vision of digital responsibility and experience with event participants.
The latest major step forward for SNCF Connect & Tech has been obtaining the Numérique Responsable Label (Sustainable IT Label, in English) in October 2024. "This is a key step that attests to a certain level of maturity of the company and its processes in terms of digital responsibility, but also to the strong commitments made for the next three years before the renewal audit," concludes Mathilde Lecompte.
Digital responsibility and tech professions: how to turn a shared vision into reality, by M. Lecompte and B. Demonet
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