Looking and listening around us these days, one might ask: should we give up on the economic and environmental transition? Take an extended break? Throw in the towel in the face of mounting difficulties and tensions? Put the matter off until later?
The transition, to summarize, means consuming fewer resources, decarbonizing our energy, preserving biodiversity as the engine of life, causing less pollution, foremost among which is CO2, the cause of climate change. All this with a growing population, widening social inequalities, wars and agenda conflicts, and financing that is slow to materialize. Everyone has now understood: it's not simple, and incantations are not enough. We could stop there and say, "too bad, that's life." Or, conversely, erect barricades and slash master paintings, with an identical result. At the same time, this immense challenge must be met; it is an appointment we cannot dishonor. There is no planet B, C, or D, as they say. And we are using it to its limits, even beyond for a good number of them!
So how to proceed? Because "doing" is the question. It is no longer time to discuss, rant, denounce, or discourse. We must act. Much has been decided, over two decades, in terms of legislation and regulation. The State has become aware of the issues and has put in place methods – "French-style planning" – and means (France 2030, notably). This remains insufficient, we know, but the general framework is established.
We have a joker, a major asset, operationally and financially, to mobilize. And it's a winning card! That of consortia, coalitions. Action coalitions, of course, the real ones, not those where we chat and then each leaves on their own after exposing our thousand and one difficulties. Those where we act! Between actors in the same value chain, members of the same ecosystem. It's cooperation between competitors. A new word even had to be coined to grasp the concept: coopetition. Motivating companies that are at war with each other every day – model wars, price wars, design wars, marketing wars, communication wars, … – in the most competitive sectors – cosmetics, agri-food, industry, … – is not always easy. Organizing this work while carefully respecting intellectual property rights and trade secrets is not necessarily simple. Getting born competitors to make collective decisions – and by what criteria, when unanimity is rarely possible? – is well-deserved, but in the end, it works!
Soccer coaches know that getting strong, talented individuals to play together on the same team requires a lot of diplomacy, finesse, and patience. Because if it doesn't work, if each person stays in their lane only showing off their individual talent, defeat is assured, regardless of the quality of the players. What counts is the strength of the collective, which allows us to defend together, to move the ball up the field, to make it fly between the attackers – there we often fail, but in the end, we score! No need to watch "Ted Lasso" to understand 😉.
Ecosystems will meet these challenges together. Of course, actors will remain competitors, but they will build their common language together. Because there are no environmental challenges without collective infrastructure, whether dealing with energy, water, resources (soils, water, sand, biomass…), biodiversity – the tools, the infrastructure, which are mostly shared: alternative energy equipment, wastewater treatment plants, recycling plants. They serve everyone. And must be adapted to everyone. Common certifications are necessary. You don't make "responsible and sustainable textiles" without common criteria, reusable packaging without agreeing together on the size of the neck to make them interoperable, electric cars without common charging stations,…
All this without forgetting, of course, the consumer, client, user… who are each other's consumers, clients, and users. Adherence to the model requires it. Here too, unity is strength, because long-standing habits will need to be changed, and this is not the easiest part. Buying grayish milk bottles because they are made from recycled plastic, ham that is less pink because it is free of additives,…
All this generates costs. And they must be pooled, shared, so as not to seem prohibitive. Transitioning sometimes means rethinking product composition, preparation chemistries, the machine tools to make them, the factories to assemble them. All of this requires investments in innovation and deployment that only the collective can shoulder and "de-risk" by guaranteeing scaling up.
The transition must therefore be understood as a team sport with common rules and a referee, often the State, to ensure they are respected. Without the existence of yellow and red cards, our soccer fields would undoubtedly be battlefields.
Joining forces, bringing together, making people work together to deploy real solutions, most of which are already known, is about assembling a team to win! Winning together, while respecting rules defined together. The French handball team, an embodiment of collective effort and self-sacrifice, of the (relative) fading of individuals for the benefit of the group's strength, European champions and Olympic champions, would not disagree!
Joining forces is an exercise in self-discipline. Managing consortiums is akin to running a series of successive marathons.
We are happy to have been doing it for 5 years at (RE)SET . With partner clients who, like us, believe only in action.
