Interview with Martin LAFON and Sarah CESKA, Transitions, and Antoine MONTEIRO, Des Enjeux et des Hommes (Ecocert Group)
For over 30 years, the Ecocert Group has been supporting the deployment and promotion of sustainable practices through certification, as well as consultancy and training, provided by the Transitions and Des Enjeux et des Hommes consultancies.
Martin Lafon and Sarah Ceska from Transitions and Antoine Monteiro from Des Enjeux et des Hommes have recently joined the Circulab community. The aim of this initiative is to strengthen the Group’s skills in the field of the circular economy and organisational resilience, by integrating the Circulab method into their toolbox.
Could you please introduce yourselves in a few words and tell us more about your respective areas of expertise?
[Martin]: Hello, I’m a senior consultant at Transitions, specialising in the design and implementation of the circular transition of organisations. I started my career in the FMCG, retail and textile sectors, where I worked for eight years. I then joined an NGO where I supported agricultural cooperatives in their empowerment around sustainable economic models. I now work with private and public sector players on the design and implementation of ambitious circular projects. My experience covers circularity diagnostics, the co-construction of new circular economic models, support for the roll-out of circular projects (eco-design, extending the lifespan of products, etc.) as well as the monitoring and evaluation of projects in order to measure their impact.
[Sarah]: I’ve been working at Transitions for 5 years as Responsible Procurement Project Director. After graduating from SciencesPo Paris with a degree in international public management, I worked for six years in NGO purchasing before joining Transitions. Today, I advise companies on their sustainable sourcing and circularity strategies, while mobilising our firm’s technical experts to define action plans and supplier evaluation tools.
[Antoine]: I’ve been a CSR consultant at Des Enjeux et Des Hommes since 2022. I specialise in identifying the issues involved in corporate social responsibility and transforming business models. Thanks to my training in geopolitics and risk management, I help build ambitious CSR strategies and support the transformation of business models to incorporate the principles of the circular economy.
Your firms joined the Ecocert group a few years ago, united by a strong ambition to accelerate the transformation of production systems and consumption patterns. What do you see as the most pressing challenges and what levers do you use to help your clients achieve this objective?
Our two consultancies, Transitions and Des Enjeux & Des Hommes, which make up Ecocert’s consultancy and training division, place impact at the heart of their strategy. In light of the current ecological emergency, we are promoting the circular economy as a means of transforming economic models to prosper within planetary limits.
A circular economic model offers significant advantages, such as reducing the risks associated with supply disruptions caused by geopolitical or climatic crises and reducing the costs associated with purchasing virgin raw materials. The circular economy can also present new economic opportunities through the development of new activities, while strengthening the brand image of companies.
Conference on Sustainable Economic Models and the Circular Economy hosted by Des Enjeux et Des Hommes in collaboration with Transitions and Leboncoin
What do you see as the role (and limits?) of regulation in transforming business models?
Regulations play a key role in encouraging organisations to incorporate more sustainable practices. The number of texts in which the circular economy is addressed has exploded in recent years, and we are even seeing it reach the level of the United Nations with the global treaty to put an end to plastic pollution. However, the inertia of the linear model is strong, as changing practices requires significant change and investment. Despite the dynamism of the regulations on the subject, the global circularity rate has fallen by 2 points in 5 years, to reach 7.2% in 2023.
We therefore believe that private players need to be inspired by demonstrating the benefits of the circular economy and highlighting the cost of inaction. It is also essential to support them in implementing circular approaches to ensure their resilience in the face of global limits.
What do you see as the future of responsible purchasing applied to circular ingredients?
Secondary ingredient supply chains present numerous social and environmental risks. International waste management channels are more informal and lack supervision, and can therefore present risks linked to working conditions, child labour or the violation of local community rights. The recycling process often has a high environmental impact, given the energy and chemicals it requires.
In this context, corporate due diligence applies, and we help our customers to identify and reduce the risks, from the point of origin of the waste to its transformation into a secondary ingredient.
Could you give us one or two examples of successful projects that you are particularly proud of?
We helped L’Oréal implement its circular strategy by co-constructing a specific definition of circularity applied to cosmetic ingredients. In order to ensure the sustainability of this approach, and given the multiplicity of definitions in terms of the circular economy, it seemed essential to us to develop a tailor-made framework. This work has enabled the group to make concrete progress towards achieving its ‘L’Oréal For the Future’ sustainable development objectives.
We also helped another major consumer goods company to develop its circular strategy through dialogue with external stakeholders. We created and moderated an ambitious and constructive forum for exchange between the company and civil society experts from several countries. The result was a new vision for the Group and a clear circular roadmap.
Facilitation of a workshop using collective intelligence tools, by the Transitions and Des Enjeux et des Hommes teams
What new added value are you looking to bring to your offer with the Circulab method?
Transitions, Des Enjeux & Des Hommes and Circulab share many common values, including an ambitious vision of the circular economy, a systemic approach to environmental and societal issues, and an emphasis on collaborative approaches. It therefore seemed natural to us to integrate the circular design tools developed by Circulab, which are based on robust and proven methodologies. We offer them to our customers to unite their in-house teams, give them the keys to becoming players in the transformation process and help them come up with concrete circular solutions that are perfectly suited to their constraints.
What are your ambitions as members of the Circulab community?
We’re very proud to be part of the Circulab community. It brings together a wide range of expertise from all over the world, which gives us the opportunity to enrich our approaches with feedback from other members, and to offer our customers ever better solutions.
