Since being founded, the Rencontres d'Arles have been driven by a number of values that are very similar to those that characterize what is known today as Corporate Social Responsibility.

For more than 50 years, the Rencontres d'Arles have been a true sounding board for the state of the world. The festival is a laboratory that composes and shapes itself according to aesthetic, technical, political and social evolutions, as part of a research-action dynamic. The Festival has constantly reinvented itself to challenge and surprise its audiences as well as to address new societal issues.

Today, the Rencontres d'Arles are defined by:

→ Strong artistic engagement: the Rencontres are a place for supporting and defending creativity, with a commitment to artists and curators by supporting and promoting their status; a venue for showcasing the eclecticism of photographic creativity, as well as a place for discovering emerging or unseen artists.

→ Activist values: a true venue for debate, the festival stimulates public life in the city of Arles and beyond. Through its programming choices, the festival brings to light and focuses on the political and social struggles of minorities, personal photographic narratives as an interpretation of history and social issues. Through its programming policy and its production and scenography decisions, the festival invites us to take a step back in our relationship with the world, by passing on the works and the artists' words to the general public. This is why the Rencontres d'Arles is particularly active in transmitting its work to younger generations by introducing them to the interpretation of images through a number of artistic and cultural education activities.

→ Social and solidarity actions: with a truly cooperative and engaged approach - thanks to the individual and collective involvement of its successive teams and managers - the festival promotes human values of benevolence, open-mindedness and inclusion, notably through a unique hiring scheme for the most vulnerable Arlesians and those furthest from employment for positions related to welcoming the public. In addition, the festival defends and promotes know-how within its technical teams, where the importance of passing on knowledge is paramount.

→ Values of sharing and reuse: for more than twenty years, the modules and scenographic structures used for exhibitions have been designed according to the circular economy principle. This approach, characterized by the reuse and repurposing of materials, has become a hallmark of the festival.

Drawing on the strength of its experiences and being aware of the challenges ahead, the festival is conscious of the need to take a more proactive approach to CSR.

Since March 2022, the Rencontres d'Arles has been a member of the Collectif des Festivals Éco-responsables et Solidaires (COFEES).

COFEES’s actions are based on four main principles:
Transmission: sharing experiences, encouraging initiatives, accompanying the actions of cultural operatives.
Regionality: base actions on local specificities, interconnect regional festivals, participate in environmental policies in the southern region of France.
Transversality: collaborate with actors in the field, solve problems common to different disciplines, build shared tools.
Sharing: gathering means and resources to reduce the costs linked to eco-responsible and solidarity-based approaches.

Since late 2022, the festival has defined a series of priorities in order to implement a voluntary ecological shift and to provide operational solutions in the short, medium and long term, around themes such as the mobility of visitors, artists and teams, the adaptation of exhibition spaces to global warming and the changing means of production.