The Great Business Challenge for the Planet delivers its 100 proposals to accelerate the ecological transition of companies. Virginie Raisson-Victor, co-founder of the movement, explains the challenges of the process.
The Great Business Challenge for the Planet, co-founded by Virginie Raisson-Victor, geopolitical scientist and forecaster, and Jérôme Cohen, founding president of Engage, has worked for more than a year with around a hundred delegates – managers, employees and corporate shareholders – to come up with a list of 100 proposals aimed at triggering the ecological shift of French companies. Techniques de l’ingénieur returns with Virginie Raisson-Victor to the culmination of a long process which proposes internal, transversal and external measures to the company.
Engineering Techniques: Why did you launch this Great Challenge and how did it go?
Virginie Raisson-Victor: Initially with Jérôme Cohen, we wanted to accelerate the transition of companies so that their activities fall within planetary limits. Business activity should be economically positive, but not destructive of nature.
We drew lots for 120,000 companies, then selected 100 delegates. Among them: managers, employees and shareholders. They worked for 12 months during 6 sessions to develop 100 proposals aimed at accelerating the ecological transition of the economy. Following the presentation of these proposals to the ESEC[1] which took place on February 9, 2023, delegates will become ambassadors within their companies and networks.
How to encourage companies to seize these proposals?
The first thing we did was involve the stakeholders in the process upstream of our work. We started by associating a community with it: we have more than a hundred institutional and associative partners, business networks, student networks, the CFDT, employee groups, environmental associations such as the WWF, local authorities and corporate sponsors. This ranges from Entreprises pour l’Environnement, which represents CAC 40 companies, to Mouvement Impact France, which has a more radical view on the subject.
The idea is that each of these partners takes over the proposals and brings them up for debate or presentation in its structures. We will ourselves bring these proposals to elected officials, public authorities and the government.
How do you rank your proposals?
There are eleven categories of proposals that encompass the entire value chain of the company and propose a journey of transformation. We discuss its governance, the commitment of the actors of the company in this process and the financing of the transition. We are interested in its production tool, whether it concerns the site, the supplies, and the production itself. Then there are sections on product packaging, distribution tracking, communication, accounting and compensation.
Several proposals are directly applicable by companies. Others are aimed more at local authorities, public authorities or the State. These are accompanying measures and possibly regulatory changes, without which companies will not be able to launch certain aspects of the transition.
What are the proposals that you consider to be priorities?
I particularly like proven solutions that work. For example, I am a member of mission committees. I think it’s remarkable as a tool to start a sustainable and long-term journey. When you become a company with a mission, you have a raison d’être. We are obliged to find its link with the general interest. We therefore replace the general interest in the company. Then, we associate missions with the raison d’être. We give ourselves objectives and a grid of indicators to follow the trajectory. The mission committee is there to support and monitor this development.
I also like the goal of implementing triple capital accounting by 2030 [qui ajoute la performance sociale et la performance environnementale à la performance économique, ndlr]. It gives value to what today does not have enough: human and environmental value. Currently, the price of a product or service does not reflect environmental or social value. It eventually passes on speculation about its rarity. From the moment you give value to the resources or the process that has made it possible to reduce your ecological footprint, you reclassify the priorities. Therefore, a price is defined that is more compatible with an ecologically and socially sustainable economy.
[1] Economic, Social and Environmental Council