You can take the blue pill and carry on with business as usual. Business as usual" is the classic, reassuring behavior of many institutions, public and private, as well as of individuals, conservative by nature. Even if, since you're reading this, you're probably less conservative than others.
Or take the red pill, follow the white rabbit and begin your journey into the matrix! That of tomorrow's world, of environmental and economic transition, which is not the result of choice but of necessity. And as Georges Clemenceau said, "When events overtake us, let us pretend to be their organizers." It's more gratifying and, above all, more useful if you run a profit or management center and intend to turn the changes underway into opportunities to become - or remain - the leader in your sector, ahead of the followers of "business as usual".
Since the @Varin report and the work of the European Commission, we know better than ever that resources are scarce and that, by definition, things are not going to get any better. Water, sand, rare earths, biomass - planetary limits and competing uses mean that there won't be enough for everyone, especially if we use them badly. We therefore need to prepare for, and adapt to, a world in which "environmental risk", and more specifically "resource risk", will be imposed on everyone. China has understood this, and is one step ahead. So has the United States, which is putting in the resources. Europe, too, in its more muddled way. But above all, each and every one of us will have to take it on board, starting with you: the entrepreneurs.
But where to start? At the beginning! That means understanding who you are, where you are, and where your company stands, in adapting to the transition underway. And to do that, you need to look at all your value chains and the risks they entail. In other words, create your vulnerability matrix, making sure that the environment and resources play their full part. Your compass for a rapidly changing world.
Many companies have long been familiar with financial and country risk matrices, not to mention health and regulatory risks. Fewer, however, have integrated resource risk into their thinking. Yet resource risk, in addition to its own characteristics (scarcity, availability), is now often at the heart of all the others!
By its very nature, the resource entails regulatory risks ("Green Deal" and other national variations), financial risks (due to the erratic evolution of raw material prices), health risks (think pesticides, PFAS, etc.), geopolitical risks (the world's leading exporter of cobalt is the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has been at war for thirty years), reputational risks (greenwashing) and market risks (sensitized consumers).
Today, a vulnerability matrix must include a complete environmental chapter and an extensive resources section. To be operational, this matrix must objectify each of the risks incurred, characterize them and assign them a probability, with a quantification of the consequences. In short, to enable prioritization. At (RE)SET, we do just that
To return to the Matrix movie, "Don't try to bend the spoon, it's impossible (...) the spoon doesn't exist (...) the only thing that bends is not the spoon, it's only your mind." So, if we can't make the environment docile and resources unlimited, let's bend our minds to create complete vulnerability matrices, compasses that always point in just one direction, the right one: that of transition!
Géraldine Poivert
