Forget the competition for a moment: your rivals are your allies in the transition. The consulting firm (RE)SET supports companies that want to transform their value chain with several partners, to limit risks and speed up the process. A small revolution.
"Too risky. How many times have you heard a company justify its inaction on climate change by pointing to the financial risks involved in transforming itself? Many are content to take small steps, overwhelmed by the prospect of their value chain being called into question.
Yet there is a way to limit the risks of transition: cooperation. Just as climate action can't just be the nth box on our personal to-do lists (organic products + peeing in the shower + cycling ≠ planet saved), there's little point in one company making its transition if others don't follow suit. Worse still: in an unstable, hyper-competitive environment, acting alone is almost always doomed to failure.
Cross-sector cooperation is no mean feat for companies, but consortiums and collectives are multiplying to keep pace with the revolution. And while no industrial sector is immune to these issues, some are ahead of the game. The cosmetics sector is one of these pioneers. In June 2021, the FEBEA, Fédération des entreprises de la beauté, launched its Plastic Act, with the aim of going faster than the AGEC (Anti-Gaspillage et Économie Circulaire) law requires: reuse 20% of packaging, develop bulk packaging, reduce the volume of plastic packaging by 15% through eco-design and substitution by new materials... All this, by 2025. The cosmetics sector has thus become the first to collectively set itself quantified targets.
At the helm of this high-profile, large-scale work is a young consultancy specializing in transition, The (RE)SET Company, created in 2019 and led by Géraldine Poivert. Since 2019, (RE)SET has been on a mission to shake up the lines in ten strategic sectors (packaging, cosmetics, furniture, textiles...), working both with single customers and in consortia. The (RE)SET slogan: "cooperation is the new competition".
A consortium to limit risks
Last year, fourteen companies in the sector (Chanel, L'Oréal, Sisley, L'Occitane...) contacted (RE)SET to form a consortium, Pulp In Action. The aim: to agree on the development of new cellulose fiber materials as substitutes for plastic, in order to tackle head-on the thorny issue of cosmetics packaging.
The consortium takes the packaging problem at source, i.e. in the laboratories, to develop innovative materials with properties adapted to cosmetic products. (RE)SET listens to the needs formulated by companies, organizes consultations, sources fiber materials, and ensures that they are functional for companies. After a first year of consultation and sourcing, some fifteen packaging pilots are already under study.
While the urgency of phasing out plastic is no longer a matter of debate, implementing this noble intention is a headache for cosmetics companies. "Plastic is a brilliant material, with properties that are hard to find elsewhere," admits Géraldine Poivert. The entire industry is built on the hegemony of plastic: "even the packaging test protocols we're supposed to rely on were shaped for plastic and aren't adapted to the new materials. Everything has to be redone. The industrial changes we need to make are real revolutions.
It's in the face of this mountain to climb that joining forces becomes relevant. "You can't think about packaging on your own", insists the founder of (RE)SET, "you have to look at the whole sector to decide on new standards. The cosmetics industry intuited this very early on.
"You don't build an armada for a niche".
The risks of transition are many. Firstly, innovation is expensive. It' s better to work together, especially when it's the decades-old plastic monopoly on packaging that needs to be challenged. "Then there's always the risk that the consumer won't follow," points out Géraldine Poivert. "For any innovation, you need a market. If a company is the only one to offer a new product, and there's no massive movement to support the consumer, there's a good chance it will lose out." Lastly, suppliers will be reluctant if the company plays the lone wolf game: "At the industrial level, we're not going to change a machine tool for 5% of the market. You don't build a whole armada for a niche.
The consortium enables companies to "de-risk innovation". "Competitors have a common interest, which is also the general interest: that of redefining standards." This is what happened at the time of the digital revolution, compares Géraldine Poivert: "at the start of the Internet, we had to agree on a protocol-based Internet. We're at that point in the environmental transition.
For Géraldine Poivert, cooperation makes sense at the start of the transition, "when we're still clearing the way". The logic is simple: "Before competing on the soccer pitch, we need to create the soccer pitch. This won't prevent companies from differentiating themselves later on, but we need to go through a phase of defining standards." And that means sitting at the same table as your competitors for a few months, or even a few years.
"A Harlequin costume
Cooperation has become a must for every sector, but it's no less of a balancing act. "It's never easy to lead a consortium," admits Géraldine Poivert. "It means creating a collective dynamic with people who have their own egos, habits and corporate culture.
It's all the more complex because the fourteen brands in Pulp In Action have very different profiles: international brands or those more focused on France, luxury brands or mass-market customers... Chanel, L'Occitane and Sisley don't have the same priorities.
"The idea is to create a Harlequin costume," explains Géraldine Poivert, "so that everyone leaves the consortium with the same suit without having given up their identity. A patchwork that (RE)SET seems to have succeeded in creating, since the fourteen companies have just signed up for a second year of work.
" The cosmetics sector dares to play collectively ".
For Géraldine Poivert, the cosmetics sector is particularly well positioned on the subject. "Cosmetics is a sector that has the means, that dares to play collectively when necessary, and that through its culture of innovation, can be a driving force in the environmental transition."
Géraldine recalls how proud she was to have been contacted by the FEBEA at the time of the Plastic Act: "it was the first sectoral trade organization to have drawn up an action plan on plastics, and the French government subsequently drew inspiration from it for its sectoral roadmaps recommended by ADEME."
Competition outdated?
2025, 2030, 2050... The deadlines given to companies to transform their businesses are short. National and European directives are multiplying, and there are now more risks in doing nothing than in transforming. In this age of urgency, silo-based operations no longer enable sectors to transform themselves quickly enough. Beyond cosmetics, certain groups have clearly understood this. Nestlé Waters, PepsiCo and Suntory have joined forces with supplier Carbios to accelerate the development of enzymatic plastic recycling. Energy suppliers and truck manufacturers are joining forces to develop hydrogen-powered trucks. Since 2021, ADEME has also been proposing "sector roadmaps" to implement cooperation within an industry.
In this revolution in corporate relations, (RE)SET offers the reassuring prospect of 360° support. The "integrated" consulting firm implements the company's transformation in each of its phases, from R&D through strategic thinking to industrial deployment. You can't do without this kind of overview if you want to go beyond a superficial transformation," insists Géraldine Poivert.
But while (RE)SET proposes an ambitious approach to companies, it is careful to distinguish itself from certain environmentalist rhetoric. "At (RE)SET, we do transition for real. We believe in green growth and the ecology of solutions. And there's no question of talking about degrowth for this firm, which makes a point of addressing companies in their own language, that of business. It's a positioning that seems to be paying off, as it has helped (RE)SET win the trust of dozens of companies, from Carrefour and Decathlon to Hachette and Orange.
Some groups go even further, making their innovations available to all through open source: this is the case of L'Oréal, which in 2020 gave access to its SPICE life-cycle analysis tool for cosmetics, so that all companies can carry out their diagnosis free of charge. Time for the Planet is also banking onopen source , and is aiming to raise 1 billion euros to finance 100 companies for the transition. For this rather unusual company, competition is simply outdated: the innovations it finances are made freely available, so that they can be replicated as quickly as possible, given the urgency of the climate change situation. From TV shows to LinkedIn posts, the company's founders keep repeating: "This is no longer a time for competition, but for cooperation."
