TEDx Talks - L'entreprise peut-elle sauver le monde ? | Emery Jacquillat | TEDxIAE Aix Marseille
The speaker emphasizes the transformative power of businesses in society, highlighting their role in both innovation and contributing to global crises like climate change and resource depletion. They argue that businesses must shift towards sustainable practices and become part of the solution. The speaker shares their experience of reviving a failing company by focusing on positive impact and sustainability, demonstrating that businesses can be profitable while being socially and environmentally responsible. They advocate for a new business model, the 'enterprise with a mission,' which integrates social and environmental goals into its core objectives. This model has been legally recognized in France, with over 2000 companies adopting it. The speaker calls for individuals, whether consumers, employees, or entrepreneurs, to demand and drive change within businesses, emphasizing that only companies proving their societal utility will thrive.
Key Points:
- Businesses have historically driven innovation but also contributed to global crises.
- A shift to sustainable business practices is essential for addressing climate change.
- The 'enterprise with a mission' model integrates social and environmental goals.
- Over 2000 companies in France have adopted this sustainable business model.
- Individuals can influence change by supporting and demanding responsible businesses.
Details:
1. 🌍 Enterprises: Innovators and Contributors to Crises
- Enterprises have historically been the primary drivers of large-scale innovations that transform society, such as the development and deployment of electricity.
- The absence of electricity would mean the absence of modern conveniences like appliances, televisions, computers, telephones, and the internet, highlighting the critical role enterprises play in societal advancement.
- Enterprises continuously reshape the world, underlining their ongoing impact on daily life and societal development.
- Despite their innovative impact, enterprises can also contribute to societal challenges, necessitating a balance between innovation and responsibility.
2. 🌱 Facing the Impact of Business on the Environment
2.1. Environmental and Ethical Challenges
2.2. Strategic Solutions and Rethinking Business Models
3. 👨💼 A Personal Entrepreneurial Journey
- Successfully revived a bankrupt company into a successful large brand by implementing a positive impact model, focusing on sustainability and social responsibility.
- Co-founded a community of mission-driven companies, aiming to leverage collective business development with a focus on purposeful and ethical goals.
- Identified the interconnection between climate change, biodiversity collapse, and lifestyle choices such as transportation, consumption, and production, advocating for changes in these areas.
- Emphasized the critical need for immediate action by current generations to prevent irreversible environmental damage.
- Outlined that individual actions, like reducing meat consumption and avoiding short car trips, only account for a quarter of the necessary efforts to meet the Paris Agreement's 2-degree goal.
- Highlighted that businesses, more than citizens or states, hold the power to drive significant environmental transformation, urging companies to take proactive steps in sustainability.
4. 🔄 Reviving a Legacy Business with a Positive Impact
- The business started in 1995 selling mattresses online and took a significant turn in 2008 when relocating to revitalize a failing cooperative.
- Success in entrepreneurship requires full support and absolute trust from a partner.
- Armel, founded in 1947 by teachers, faced challenges with the rise of the internet and was on the brink of disappearing.
- The belief was that the brand could become a real alternative to large retailers by focusing on quality, eco-responsible, locally manufactured products.
- The only way to succeed in the project was to center it on a positive impact model, focusing on social issues, maximizing job recreation locally.
- Secured support from the region during the financial crisis, which enabled banks to partner with the business.
- Focusing on 'Made in France' in 2009, considered outdated then, helped regain trust from 125 French manufacturers who now contribute to 75% of the business's revenue.
- Key partnerships with Laurence Meignori and Pierre Olivier Barren, who founded one of the first impact investment funds in France, were crucial.
- Their investment thesis was that businesses addressing social and environmental issues would also be the most successful.
5. 🔍 Redefining Business Purpose and Governance
- The financial crisis of 2008 highlighted a fundamental crisis in the purpose of businesses, emphasizing profit over the core reasons for their existence.
- Key elements needing re-evaluation include the company's legal framework, particularly its social purpose, which should incorporate broader social and environmental goals.
- Governance structures must evolve to reduce shareholder dominance, often focused on short-term profit maximization.
- A proposed independent governance body, the 'mission committee', would involve more employees and stakeholders in decision-making.
- The concept of 'société à objet social étendu' aims to redefine companies with an extended social purpose beyond traditional profit sharing.
- A collaborative process involving stakeholders like clients, shareholders, and employees is essential to redefine a company's reason for existence.
- This process took over two years to articulate a company's purpose, considering what would be fundamentally different if the company did not exist and if its best practices were universally adopted.
- In 2017, the mission was officially integrated into the company's framework.
6. 💪 Making Bold Moves for Sustainable Business Practices
- The company made a strategic decision to close its website on Black Friday, aiming to make a bold statement against consumerism and promote sustainable consumption, even in the face of shareholder resistance.
- There was significant media coverage, though initially, journalists struggled to understand the value of boycotting Black Friday, a major advertising revenue week.
- Despite a financial loss of several million euros, the initiative strengthened the company's commitment to sustainability and resonated with stakeholders who value sustainable practices.
- The move highlighted the urgency of re-evaluating consumption habits and underscored the importance of considering the environmental and social impact of purchases.
- The company's communication strategy focused on educating consumers about the impact of their buying choices, aiming to foster a long-term shift in consumer behavior towards more sustainable practices.
- Long-term effects on the brand included increased loyalty from environmentally conscious consumers and a stronger market position among sustainability-focused brands.
7. 🔧 Innovating with Circular Economy Principles
- Implementing circular economy principles led to a complete review of 20,000 product references, focusing on origin, manufacturing processes, and efficiency improvements.
- The development of a fully recycled mattress, made from old mattresses, became a bestseller, creating triple value: economic, social, and environmental.
- Economically, the recycled mattress protected margins amidst Covid-19 and material price inflation, particularly for petroleum-based foam.
- Socially, the initiative supported the creation of 10 jobs in France, directly contributing to employment.
- Environmentally, it reduced CO2 emissions compared to non-sustainably sourced products.
- The circular economy approach reconciles economic growth with social and environmental challenges, enhancing overall performance.
- The mission-driven company model serves as a powerful tool for engagement, innovation, and performance, leading to the founding of a community of mission-driven companies.
- By 2019, the concept of mission-driven companies was integrated into law, resulting in over 2,000 such companies in France across various sizes and legal forms.
8. 🌟 Empowering Change Through Purpose-Driven Companies
- Encouraging the development of purpose-driven companies in Europe to align business functions with societal and environmental needs is urgent.
- Citizens can influence corporate behavior by supporting companies that are engaged and transparent about their social and environmental commitments.
- Students are encouraged to seek meaningful professional lives by questioning potential employers about their commitments, or even creating their own mission-driven enterprises if unsatisfied.
- Employees hold significant power to drive change from within their organizations by rethinking practices and innovating products and services.
- Leaders are urged to challenge existing business models to ensure their company's societal utility, as it will attract consumer preference, employee engagement, young talent, and investment.
- The transformation of companies is seen as a pathway to societal transformation, with an emphasis on using love and care for future generations and the planet as a driving force for change.