We have now entered a new era, the era of conscious quitting, where employees are choosing jobs that offer fulfillment and positive impact over better pay, greater flexibility or greater well-being. This is a challenge that companies should take seriously.
The ocean, which covers 71% of the planet's surface, is a kind of control center that has allowed life on Earth since its origin. Since 1870, the beginning of the pre-industrial era, it has sequestered 155 billion tons of CO2. It absorbs more than 90% of the excess energy due to the increased concentration of greenhouse gases (GHG) of human origin and sequesters about a quarter of the CO2 emitted each year by humans. The ocean has so far helped slow the rate of climate change on the one hand, and the violence of the impacts generated by this change on the other. Without the magic of this natural mechanism we would already be overwhelmed by unbearable heat.
Every year, more than 100 billion items of clothing and accessories are sold around the world: a consumption that has doubled in only 15 years thanks to this toxic system of overproduction and overconsumption. The fashion industry has become one of the most polluting: it produces 20% of the world's wastewater and 10% of the world's carbon emissions, more than all the emissions from international flights and shipping.
The real challenge today is above all to radically transform our production models and our organizations in order to reduce our emissions at the source, because to date there is hardly any company that can claim that its CO2 emissions are decreasing in absolute value. Emissions should decrease by 5% per year for the next 30 years if we want to reach the objective of limiting global warming to +1.5 degrees compared to the pre-industrial era, and yet they continue to increase every year. Between fatalism and solutionism, there is a third way, full of hope, which consists in urgently engaging in a real transition because the solutions and technologies for an admissible sobriety and without regression exist.
What would our childhoods be without it, which sheltered our games of hide-and-seek, offered its branches to our swings, or to our feet when we decided to climb higher and higher; without it, which populated the tales that our parents told us at night before going to sleep? It adorns parks, botanical gardens, the promenades of large estates and allotments. It seems that we only know it high and wide, so fast does it grow, majestic, protective, major despite its eternal greenness.
The larch is first and foremost a nostalgia, that of the time when petrol had to be earned. You had to climb. On foot. Up to 2000 metres, but as a child, that meant up to the sky.
The oak fascinates our imagination at first, before we marvel at more scientific discoveries linked to its Latin name of Celtic origin, quercus, which means tree par excellence.
In 2022 Yvon Chouinard made an announcement that for the moment is an exception in the business sphere: he transferred, in agreement with his family, the ownership of Patagonia to a trust and a non-profit organization, Holdfast Collective. The purpose of this arrangement is to dedicate all of Patagonia's profits to the fight against climate change and the protection of underdeveloped lands around the world.
The collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory in 2013 marked an awakening to the state of the contemporary fashion industry and led to a landmark agreement between brands and unions that promised better conditions for workers. But labor organizations say there is still much to be done to address the violations on which the industry is based.
On June 18, the Swiss people will have to vote on three issues, including the counter-proposal to the glacier initiative, which aims to adopt a law that will enshrine net "zero emission" of CO2 by 2050. Supporters of this text are keen to avoid a repeat of the failure of the CO2 law two years ago. It is high time for Switzerland to adopt an ambitious plan to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in order to reach the objectives set by the Paris Agreement.
Several key texts of the European Union's climate plan were adopted on April 18, including the reform of the carbon market and the "carbon tax" at the borders, which consists of taxing the CO2 emissions of the most polluting imported products. Parliament also passed a new law on April 19 that requires companies to prove that they have not manufactured their products on land that has been deforested since December 31, 2020.
It's Marie's turn, the founder of La Mèche, to sell us her wick. In this interview she shares with us some of the vision she wanted to instill in the creation of this ecosystem intended to inform, connect and accompany the actors of change. She also shares her vision of responsibility as an individual and as a company and her vision of a society that would give itself the means to transform itself in depth to create a biocentric, regenerative and equitable world.
Paul Merz is at the origin of the rebirth of Motosacoche, a mythical Geneva-based motorcycle brand created at the beginning of the last century. In 2021, the brand will be part of the ecological transition by offering a new sustainable and efficient mobility machine, a reissue of the revolutionary Type-A in an electric version. Paul gives us his vision of sustainable entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship in general, as this is not his first adventure: a very realistic and pragmatic vision, marked by strong values and convictions.
Rachel Camara-Michaux is the co-founder and president of the brand ORBE NOVO, which creates high-end bags and accessories from upcycled textiles. After more than twenty years spent in the marketing departments of international luxury and sports brands, she decided to change her horizon, to give more meaning to her professional life with a more personal project closer to her values and convictions.
